Hump Day results!

If I had this in my driveway I'd rule you all

The return to Video Games did not disappoint! Everybody kicked out some impressive jams. Catfreeek wowed me early on with this winner:

After 3 years of begging him please
Tony bucked up and bought me a Wii
Now I'm jumping around
Like an amputee clown
for all of my neighbors to see

I think we can all welcome the term "Amputee Clown" into our private lexicon. Cat's avatar has even succumbed to the awesome sauce.

JPX got the wonderful feud ball rolling early with the never-dying conflict we started in Ann & Hope long ago.

He tried his darn best
To win at Pole Position
Wasn't fast enough

He blamed me for this
Though he already had lost
Took it out on me

Killed my character
During game of Jungle Hunt
He's a sore loser

Who is it, you ask?
Who lost at Pole Position?
Why Octo, of course!

I note that phrases like "wasn't fast enough" must be taken with a dash of salt, as JPX famously downshifted my poor aspiring video racing self when I was within sight of the finish line. All these years he has not denied this maneuver, holding tight to the wacky theory that I didn't have enough time to get there anyway. In truth:

Would my car have got to the finish?
In truth chances were looking slimmish
But my mouth I'm not shuttin'
"Keep your mitts off my buttons!"
Matters not if I'm lose-ish or win-ish.

This didn't actually occur to me until the first round of video game poetry, but who cares if I would've lost??? The point is no foreign hands ever drifted towards my controls again. That dead little Tarzan served his purpose.

AC claimed a girl-out but still managed to represent; I was particularly fond of this one:

i hate asteroids
makes me panic instantly
must be a girl thing

It might be a girl thing, but maybe I'm a great big girl, because upon reading those syllables I realized Asteroids does induce an instant panic. Must be that Jaws-esque rhythmic thumping (and oh how one's heart flutters when you blow away that last pebble and you're suddenly surrounded by boulders).

My favorite of 50PageMcGee's output was about an obscure video game, but one I recall fondly:

He pedals down Easy Street, chipper
Just a normal kid chucking newspaper
Bees, cats, trikes, construction
Not uncommon obstructio--
OH MY GOD! IT'S THE FUCKING GRIM REAPER!

I only ever watched others play Paper Boy (or whatever it's called), because my skill to quarters ratio wasn't high enough. But you gotta love the inclusion of the Reaper in the streets of Everytown. Plus, I loved how the fourth line's rhyme is incomplete because it's cut off by the fifth.

Herr Sweatpants brought in some wonderful late work, taking full advantage of my extended deadline -- and I mean FULL, his last humongous entry coming in at exactly 12 noon.

And the song-inspired format, begun by Stan with Enter Frogger, is freakin' awesome. What a great addition to our arsenal of poetical forms. Both Stan and Johnny laid out some phat musically-propelled material, and while they both rocked neither entry was my favorite thing they did.

For Johnny, it was this:

This time what is your excuse?
Broken joystick? Mother Goose?
The harsh truth- you can’t compete
Johnny Sweatpants can’t be beat

Mother Goose? MOTHER GOOSE? This is one of my favorite things about reading from the Book of Johnny: these bits of randomness which come out of dimension X but are just perfect choices for the moment. Yes.


Unfortunately, or fortunately, Johnny Sweatpants can be beat, at least at poetry contests. This one from Stan makes me snort every time I read it, or even think about it.

There once was a game called Zaxxon
Which is a really good game to crap on
You fly into walls
The game's hard as balls
I'd rather be raped with a strap-on

It's got everything: the lampooning of a frustrating game, whackily questionable rhymes, and the words "balls" and "strap-on" in the limerick's punchline positions. Just excellent stuff. Stan, give yourself a 5,000 point banana.

Congrats everybody! Hope to see more of the holder-outers tomorrow!