As the story of the tortoise and the hare illustrates, a lack of speed is not always a bad thing. The same applies to our Post-Epic poetry project, which has attracted 750 lines since it was launched in mid-December last year.
750 lines!!
While our original 10,000 line target is pretty much unachievable now (unless we were to approve all of our spam comments, which would get us there in a matter of hours), I still think we can crack the big 1,000.
Do you think you can help?
If every member of our Facebook group contributed one line, it would be game over. If every one of our subscribers contributed one line, we'd more than double our total. If everyone in the whole world contributed just one line … okay, you get the idea.
It's difficult to pick a favourite poem from the thirty four Post-Epics, particularly as they currently vary in length from seventeen to thirty-six lines, but it's hard to go past w.m. lewis' man walks into bar, with its repeated refrain. Check this out:
Man walks into bar.
the police blame the bar
wallpaper, small window, the low mist hangs
alcohol fumes climb the walls
where dead men run a tab
You think this is a joke
said the ambulatory anus
A haze of horizon.
Man balks. Call him ‘The Tsar'
glasses shatter in his eye
which had been full of eastern promises
but now shies away from the light
when Tsar walks into the police
and says, ‘You lookin' for a fight?'
- bar none – the habit-wearing one replies
don't interrupt we're doing the sudoku
too dunkin our churros d'orge in leaves to help ya
Soz bout that. The man looks on and laughs. He's
all talk, no action. All bark, no bite.
Heads lift from their schooners to survey the stranger
but the eyes are glassed
in a kind of, Liam Gallagher way
an upstart, only three chords roll here
another round rolls over and plays dead,
the barkeep threatens cut-off
can easy size up sordid sag of time
until The Tsar's dog nosey's in, lookin' for a morsal
a man walks into a bar
holding up a STOP sign, idle onlookers laugh
Idiots.
In a vodka oasis, screwing with the stasis.
Still knife.
Yet life still.
yet still, Idiots! they scream, and are barred, barred,
finches that fight and fly in equal measure
one potato, two potato, three potato, four
man walks into fish and chip shop -
it's a touch too much to blame the fish
Now if that's not a hivemind at work, I don't know what is.
Of course, with thirty four poems to choose from, sometimes it's a bit hard to know where a line is needed. All I can say is: go for it! Once we've reached our 1,000 line target, we'll present the poems in all their ragged and delightful glory. Until then, fire away!
