At long (and I mean LONG last), we have the winner for this week’s contest.

It is Doug.

Every Sentence Runs Out

by Doug

Sentences, gracefully elaborated, embellished
with the sounds of glorious triumph, played

with cacophonous instruments of
drunken loquacious musicians strung out
on their heart strings,

birds and cats
playing around with joyful noise who are mine,

these sentences gracefully making every trill
a wave to glory, oceanic, are not runaways,
being ensconced in dreams, and

pray tell, if I may continue,
the words of the angels
are infinite and concise like
love that sings forever charming and
as elaborate as is a sentence to joy,

many times re-phrased, re-claused
like a Santa Clause whose mythology endures
way beyond his run away sleigh, bells of grace
reverberating with every sentence pronounced
by judges and supplicants
gracefully joined in symphony, in
sympathy, in empathy, and joined on every path
to any pathy even daffy, because
the complex can be simply wonderful
like you all who indulge
the marathon run into oblivion
with a billion words and
who pause to hear my running word.

Give me my praise
I shall not want but my
thousand splendid words, and
she who is verbose, perhaps,
yea but

Maybe I should have met her
on every cherished thought I had

but nocturnal words are fickle
and u don’t know how much i tried

oh don’t scold me if I tell u others
of the old words that defy

Look up,
look it up:
those lucubrations

where I studied romance,
but feared to speak out loud
lest a candle be blown out
on a cherished doubtful notion

Maybe I could have known her
with every cherished thought I had

Devotions in motion maybe
are not a type face. I’m
looking it up.

Sometimes she’s in a digital box,
but now I imagine:

Looking up to the sky
she’s running wild style
climbing adventurous trees

Those wild trees uproot themselves
just to make a statement
even if they fall short of running
but, of course, it’s not recommended

Yes, trees can branch
that’s their slow motion adventure
when they must wait for seed carriers
that bear their fruit

Maybe she’ll come down
for our favorite wine
and a dithyramb
about ecstasy
and leafy love

I have seen her dither,
climb a tree in bloom
speak with flirty birds
and have a word with me
that is a subtle twitter bark
surrounding like a hug wood
a play with banter-word chirps

But wilder is better because
even in flighty tedium whims
she knows the prolix eagles
who extend their wings
and cry for hours when
she speaks their language

With a waiting twiddle I wanted much
to touch her since then, and
there is a flourish in melody
that accompanies the twaddle
of the giddy blooming of me
I hear when I think
of her as branching music
reaching for the sky

I know she’s reading
between tweets
sneaking a look at
longer things like me
world famous innuendo

Hello, I can see you dear and
I have words to sing.
Step away from the box screen
and meet me in the forest;
there’s a long body
of conversation
of pleasure

I want my thousand words,
don’t want to abbreviate you
or shorten the picture

I don’t see you as a u or pic, and
I’m so sorry u were picked on

I will file a brief
in the highest court for
je ne sais quoi appeals, and
run rampant on ramparts of verbosity
because at least prolixity has a tongue
a lingua frank and a lingua true
not politically corrected scrub
but where I could be a tree
and you could be a bush
in the metaphor field
away from the digital box
and on to lots

short enough for ya’
u,… Oh, I would ask
your real name, but
I forgot mine

Maybe if I’ve lost my mind,
all these palpitations I have known
will be smoothed by mellifluous U when
your dear ear is on my flighty heart, and
frenzied eagles clap their wings, but yes
it’s best to reminisce, be in the pasture
of the past remembering:

maybe I should have met her
on every cherished thought I had
on the euphonious sound
of the mind plays played out
splayed like detritus loved, but

I knew her in the protest days
when she had the cacoethes loquendi,
was a gifted articulate rabble rouser
in a day when there were no cell phones
just cells

Oh the sadness of her cacoepy when
she mumbles tripe into the belly of a text message
never speaking in a sentence that would echo
over the harbinger crows that these days
inhabit the empty speakers’ square
where passersby, no longer downtrodden,
are down headed streaming pap on screens

I knew her when she would stand on a statue
demand her rights when she was right, there
in the speakers’ square (secretly knowing she was cute)

But now she’s downheaded and confused
refusing the speakers’ platform
where birds and I
could hear some rhetorical question
that I profoundly would, with chalice aforethought,

mischievously answer in basso profundo
“Share my wine of fictional dictum in a cup”
and I could see now that
she’d pronounce us “Huh whaa?”
and does she know I know
she knows she’s cute

I think a kiss would be
better than a text message
or a revolution

Give me my praise
I shall not be wanted

My praise is in the valley.
There the lambs are abundant;
I do not need to want for lamb chops, and
no need for stewing.

Give me my paprika,
the shepherdess is at the barbecue

My staff, they comfort me,
the office gives me my just humor;
they humor me in cacophony

I cross the river into Egypt
and find my sticks, no carrots

Loquaciousness
do not fail me now, for
I must beg to be let to
come to the gates of Heaven
and plead my case in
the verbosity of the century, yea
I come to praise Caesar and myself in kind

Indeed tell me he is there
and I am ubiquitous in
the quadrillion words of praise.

Congratulations, Doug! You are the most terrible poet of the week!

If you managed to get through all of Doug’s poem, you may have thought, “Well, of COURSE he won. I would have given him first prize just to stop reading!” …Maybe that was just me. But, I wish for all entrants and readers to know that length was not the primary determinant in choosing.

Length was one of the qualities that helped Doug win the crown, only because he clearly used length as an intentionally irritating characteristic. Besides incredible long-ness; I appreciated his word usage (in fact, Doug’s second poem almost won first for that, as well as two or three other submissions I received), somewhat-cohesive subject, more formal tone, and intentional (I hope) misspellings and mis-wordings.

That’s not to say the others didn’t give Doug a run for his …prestige of earning first prize. If you can stand to, read them all below:

In Praise of Verbosity

by Doug

Do not abjure verbosity in
servile service to the reckless feckless,
those pusillanimous brevity mice,
rodents on the road to hell paved
with the cheesy gold, like pyrite
written on the cave wall, those
who shun the consanguinity of
the synonymatic coinage, and who
at best are simpletons,
mere intelligentsia manqué
taking a wrecking ball to
a palace where formal balls are
hosted with complex word dances
with subordinate clauses and pauses
in pas de deux coupling of phrases

It is not mythomania
to champion verbosity against the normative nabobs
who can not lengthen themselves to Robert
and not be Bob bobbing in a tiny pond
when the oceanic awaits the big fish.

A penchant for words is the progenitor
of the verbose pension proscription
unless one eats one’s words.

—–

Untitled piece

by Peregrine Arc

Over the river and through the woods
To loquacious land we go
Up and down, in and out
Throwing up long words and thumbing our snouts
Dotting our I’s
Hearing our tunes
Taking a breathe
Delivering ’til June
Free write is a way
To earn free spoons…

But did I tell, did you hear
The tune of a man who drove a John Deere?
Upwards and humming
Downwards and chummy
And boy did that grass grooooww—-oh!

Over the river and through the woods
To Captain Marvel we go!
Did you see the movie yet?
It was great, the actions spectact!
-ular, oooh!

Over the bridge and under the fire
Suddenly we’re quite alone.
I hear music a thrumming,
A child humming
And then it’s back to loquacious land we ….gooooooo……

Repeat ad naseuam.

—–

Verbosity is my Name

by Ruth Scribbles

I want to write a story

But you’d be so bor-y-ed

I want to write a poem

And you’d be all ho-hum-ed 😴

I’d write you a tune

Yet you’d tune it out

Whoa is me

So I decided to write what pleases me

And they all said glory be!

Will she be verbose?

Or will we all become comatose?

So she began to write

The more she wrote

The crazier she felt

Until she saw herself sitting there

Writing about writing

Blah blah blah

Then she began to sing as she wrote

The words became a song

Verbose is the name of the game

Cringe if you must

But I will boast

That I am the most

Verbose

After a cup of coffee

They call me verbosity

That is really silly,

Don’t you think?

Is your thinking verbose?

Wow…. now THAT my friends

Is morose!

I’m done now

So I’ll say goodbye

Or is the end better?

What is the best way

To end a verbose poem

Terribly!

Ba bye all yawl!!

—–

Unfortunate Decision

by Violet Lentz

Dare you hear the haunted humming of your heinous, heathen, heroin heart? As it whines, whispers, moans, meows, making love to your muddled mind..

Even in sacred, solemn silence- it mouths, mimes, meanders, melding wit with wisdom, it’s wanton wishes, willfully woo you with, and without words.

Cunningly the darling devil delights in its own devious desires- dipping, delving, deeper, deeper, desperate to draw on your personal penchant for privilege- pestering, pleading, plying, pulling- please?

It gropes, it grasps, it gathers, regretfully you dis-graciously give in finally, to its felonious, festering, frivolity- finishing your frolic with a familiar foray into faux forever….

So stealthily has it succeeded in ceremoniously sucking you in, so slyly you have been smitten, smote, stolen, sold.  All attachments annihilated. Set adrift. aloft. alone..

In grotesque hues of envious green, grinning, glaring, gorging, gouging away at your still sensitive sane self, it splays itself, spread-eagle before you.. begotten, betrothed, bewitched, beguiled- be damned..

Openly, luring you with liberal libations, limitless ludicrous luxury, lovingly, lustfully leering, “look at me”… At last releasing, its succor, slowly, sensually, silently, seducing you. You succumb. Such sweet surrender….

Never one to linger, laughing as it lecherously leaves you.. You look longingly, lingering- lost… Addicted. Abused. Used-up. Useless.. Another unfortunate decision…

—–

A Simple Song of Spring

by Trent P. McDonald

‘Tis spring!
A man thinks of the simple things
The important things
‘Tis spring
The vernal equinox
As the sun moves past the equator
No, that’s not right
The sun doesn’t move
Does it?
Well, technically, it does move
Rotating around the galaxy’s hub
While the galaxy zips out from…
Wait, what’s our frame of reference?
Where does the galaxy zip from?
Where did it start?
Hmmmm…
About 13 billion years ago
The universe was born
For the first few nano-seconds
Before matter as we understand existed
The Universe actual went faster than the speed of light
Well, light didn’t exist yet
Anyway
It all slowed down to just a bit less than the speed of light
Now it has slowed more
Though the mass is unaccounted for
To make it slow so much
So we developed the concept of dark matter
It is possible that the dark matter
Caused the galaxies to form
From galaxies are born stars
Like our sun
And around our star, Sol, a system
The Solar System was formed
Which includes Earth
Which rotates around the sun, Sol
But the axis is tilted
So once every rotation
From a reference on Earth
(of course)
The sun moves past the equator
(From that frame of reference, remember!)
Heading north
Well, that brings us back to spring
Now doesn’t it?
‘Tis spring!
And man thinks of the simple things
The important things

—–

Words, words and more words

by Greygirlieandme

What is a word you ask?
I’ll set myself to this impossible task.
A collection of letters
made by your olders and betters.
You put the letters into syllables
so they become understandables.
And then you add the syllables together
to make a word, one doesn’t do – you need more to blether
and blether and blether and babble
just like when you’re playing scrabble.
I always win the wordy game,
I don’t cheat, as you proclaim.
I know more words than you do, you know
please don’t keep up this horrible row.
And when you’ve got your words sorted out
that’s when you can begin to spout.
Proclaim to all and sundry, everywhere
at speaker’s corner, the market square. Here
you might find an audience
who’ll listen to your every sentence.
And when you’ve bored them into submission
why not audition for the television?
So many channels are on the air, cable,
internet, and the radio. I’ll ask my Aunty Mabel
which one would suit your constant blather,
don’t get yourself in such a lather,
your constant chit-chat
makes everyone say ‘What?
What is this person going on about?’
It makes my ears begin to sprout
little hands to close the lobes
against your words not as wise as Job’s.
Just because words come in trillions
like the lovely Brazilian’s
nuts, you need only use a few.
Like an orderly queue.
Not a raging mass of words
that turns my milk into curds.
It’s time to stop
before I pop.

—–

Verbose

by TanGental

There are those who think me alien
And whose gratuitous opinions pale when
They realise I’m sesquipedalian
A lot

Some will think it a pity
And others are just plain shitty
If I say it’s serendipity
Or wot.

I admit I like things in order
And it’s true I’ve been known to murder
Those who enjoy schadenfreude
A lot.

And I’ll be the first to run a mile
And never forget to smile
In the presence of a logophile
Or wot.

And in truth nobody knows
How it drives me comatose
When I’m told I’m far too verbose
A lot

Because to me it would appear
That my meaning is always clear
Despite verbal diarrhoea
Or wot.

Some fear it might be contagious
And the suggestion really audacious
That we need to be more loquacious
A lot.

But the bottom line is why use one word when a dozen will do and if I didn’t go on and on and on and on then the howling void that comprises your puling mediocre lives would be so overwhelming you might think you had something important to say and that would never do.
Thank you
A lot.

—–

Thank you; thank you for entering! You’ve ruined made my day, and the days of many lucky readers besides me.

Doug: D. Wallace Peach created this graphic that you can use (if you want) for a badge of honor as the winner: