Kilmer 2006

The Winner

Psalm
by Yonah Lemonik CC '08

A Psalm of David:

1: O LORD, the firmament sheweth thine handiwork, and the heavens thine wisdom.
2: Your might exceeds the depth of the seas, O LORD, yea, your righteousness the vaults of the skies.
3: O LORD, have you ever considered the advantages of owning a really fine set of encyclopedias?
4: I mean this is a truly gorgeous set of twenty four volumes here, am I right?
5: For verily, O LORD, the wallpaper showeth thine good taste, and the bookcase thine worldiness.
6: And should the chicks see a really handsome leather-bound set like this one they shall surely dwell in the house of the LORD for the length of days... or at least the nights!
7: Eh? Eh? Eh?
8: No, no wait don't close the door, O Awesome LORD, do not cast me aside in this my hour of need.
8a: For Thou art a merciful LORD, and loving.
9: Yea thou art a support to orphans and thou lifteth up the weak.
10: O LORD, thou giveth comfort and sustenance to the poor.
11: Please, O LORD, be merciful, as you ride this subway to a warm home and loving family; remember there are those out on the streets less fortunate than you.
12: We can feed a family of four for only 79 cents, but tonight were going to have to turn people away. So please give generously, O Just LORD, do not turn thine countenance from us.
13: Well? What, nothing? You can't give even a penny, O Tremendous G-d?
14: Oh that's great, O LORD, you're just great. Thou art super fucking awesome.
15: O Mighty And Awesome LORD, thine voice convulseth the deserts and blabbity blah blah.
16: Even thine oh so holy angels tremble in thine August and Awesome presence, the pussies.
17: O Master of the Universe, I am sooooo scared of you.
18: Oooooh....
19: No wait, O LORD, I didn't mean to be nasty; you're a great guy.
20: And I like you, I just don't like you like you, y'know.
21: No, you're really a great guy, O Lord Of Jacob; thou judgeth the righteous with goodness and hateth the wicked.
22: Until a man's dying day thou waiteth for him to return.
23: And you're a really funny guy! Yes, yes, you are G-d.
24:
You created flamingos
brilliant touch with the pink there;
and the Black Death
greatest
practical joke
ever;
Menstruation?
hilarious;
The human condition is
pure comic genius.
25: C'mon, how bad can you be, O LORD? You do have complete dominion over the heavens and earth.
26: Yea, thou art ruler of the seas and king of the mountains.
27: Thou causeth the wind to blow and the sun to shine.
28: O LORD thou openeth the gates of dawn and ordereth the stars in their places.
29: Verily O LORD thou art powerful - you have thousands of workers reporting to you, CEO of a multibillion dollar multinational corporation, yes sir!
30: Yes sir, Yes sir, O LORD you're the most powerful man in America, yes sir.
30.5: Why that's a brilliant idea it is yes sir, yes sir!
31: No sir, O LORD, I'm not just being a yes man, yes sir!
32: Genius sir! If we sack the entire company we'll have no costs. Our profits will go through the roof yes sir! Genius, O LORD, yes sir!
33: Yes sir, Thou art truly a wondrous LORD!
34: Thou splitteth the sea before thine children, and feedeth them in the wilderness.
35: O LORD, Thou bringeth up beautiful flowers from the firmament and showeth the rainbow as a sign for the generations.
36: Yes, O Mighty and Awesome LORD, your hair is truly beautiful. And your eyes are like two stars shining out on a moonless night.
37: Your movements, O LORD, are like grace encapsulated, your voice is like a pure clarion call.
38: Thou hast a great rack, and voluptuous thighs.
39: And my ears are cold.
40: So why don't head back to my place, O LORD. I have a fine set of encyclopedia's to sell you. Rawr.


And let us say. Amen.


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1st Runner Up

Leftovers
by Jonah Bloch-Johnson CC '08 (as "Phillip Hutchinson") and Phyllis Ma CC '09

I like leftovers
Like my soul
which is the leftovers of your love

It could have been the pullover of your love
Soft, and cuddly
But instead you had to wear the button of hate and misery.

My heart is dribbling down my face
Like anchovies
That you reheat and reheat

Shall I compare thee – to the best minds of my generation?
Do I dare-to contradict myself?
To eat or not to eat now but maybe to take it home and stick it in the fridge – of history next to the gasket of time by the magnet of monogamy, under the freezer – of infinity.

Leftovers.
eftovers.
ftovers.
tovers.
overs.
vers.
ers.
rs.
s.

[high pitched noises]

broccoli

[high pitched noises and snapping]

coleslaw

[high pitched noises and snapping]

fried pus!

of destiny


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2nd Runner Up

Put your Pudding Where your Mouth Is
by Rob Frawley CC ‘10

Have you ever eaten pudding
I mean really Eaten it.
Not a nibble, not a munch, not a chew or a crunch.
Have you ever let it envelope your mouth in cold gooey delight.
Have you ever moaned for your pudding.
Has your pudding ever moaned for you.
I dare you – eat your pudding
Become your pudding
Let the pudding flow from your every orifice and scream “I AM PUDDING”
And then, gently recede into your puddingness,
And let the pudding be.

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3rd Runner Up

Meditations from the Bottom of a Wells
by Maggie Lane CC '09 and Sasha Stewart CC '09

i. From the Well a Voice Cometh
Perhaps this well is my spiral
To a kinder hell
Except wells are cylinders
Dante was wrong.

Time trickles on like raindrops falling… into a well.

In this well
I will dwell
My heart doth swell
My thoughts, pell mell
My voice, a treble
My sense, of smell
My boyish form, so sup-pel
Around my neck, a lapel
Untold stories, I yearn to tell
I slipped on a banana pe-el
And into this abyss, I fell
This world of mine, a prison cell
Like a prisoner of war, named Marcel
Or Irish savior, lost Parnell
My soul I would sell
Or beg or plead or ped-del
Nails scratch and break and bleed and swell
Lessons are hard to learn
In the bottom of a well

ii. By the Well a Man Cometh
Is this my body?
No it’s a well
Is this my metaphor?
No it’s a well
Is this God?
No, it’s my voice from a well
Is this the Media Age?
I wish Lassie were here
Timmy? Timmy?
Too bad my name’s Tom
Should I throw pennies?
Food would be better.
Will you grant my wishes?
Only if your wish is to hear a voice from the well.
My wish! Granted! The well is magic! I must tell the others!
Oh go to hell.

iii. From the Well the Well Cometh
Stone, mortar, water, moles
Chipped nails, chipped souls
Of little forgotten boyos
Trapped in arroyos
Trapped in the chasm
Of my bosom
Forever singing their tales of woe
But do I listen? No
For I am a well
Powerful to beheld.
… Oh, Well.


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Honorable Mentions: Too Good for Kilmer Category

When the Economist met the New Yorker
by Eric LeSueur CC '06

When the Economist met the New Yorker, love was in the air.
They brushed shoulders by the Grand Central news stand
And after a few perfectly timed witticisms, the Economist took an unusually bold move and asked her to drinks at the St. Regis, because that is what a gentleman does.

When they met again, the Economist could not help but smile as the New Yorker looked down at her glass of Chardonnay, nervously rubbing the stem begin her fingers, and told him of her love of short fiction and her hobby of drawing single panel cartoons, which her friends nevertheless thought profound.

When she asked him about his own pursuits, he remarked that in his present career he performed forensic economic analysis, but that his true passion lay in the implementation of monetary policy. And he knew he had found someone special when the New Yorker thought that was interesting and amidst the candlelight placed her hand atop his, and asked him to tell her more.

Soon they could be seen holding hands as they walked down the Guggenheim, and kissing as the autumn leaves fell upon them in Central Park. And when they finally did spend the night together, the Economist saw the New Yorker as she laid in her languid prose, and smiled at the adorable way she marked repeating vowels and failed to italicize book titles.

One day, as they were watching “Terms of Endearment”, the New Yorker began to cry. Not because of Debra Winger’s performance, but because at long last, she was happy. “Things were never so good when I was dating the Popular Mechanic,” she said. And the Economist is not afraid to admit that even he shed a few tears, also not because of the film…
Indeed, it was the first time he had wept since Thatcher left office.

Sadly, my friends, the relationship, much like this poem, ran out of steam. This prospective merger, which had begun with such promise, concluded slowly and ignobly, as the Economist reached a conclusion that the marginal benefits were no longer meeting marginal costs. It was only afterward that the Economist finally realized, too late in fact, that some things in life, particularly love, could not be so coldly calculated. Though he is with Harper now, and she with some New Republican, the Economist often thinks fondly of the days of this youth, and the promise they held when he brushed shoulders with the New Yorker.

L’Orfeo y Selfone – the Lost Monteverdi Opera
Translated by: Edward A. Rueda (CC ’05) Musically Reconstructed By: Everett Patterson (CC ’06) with Cellist, Harpsichordist, and Turner of Pages

The only way to do this poem justice is by video, which should be coming soon! But for now the 'Libretto' with 'translation:'


ORFEO:
Selfone, ¿puedes oirme ahora?
Il’fierno es tant’oscuro
Siento tu dolore.
Espería que nos ’contraremos
Pero l’entrada de la tierra muerta
Tiene un señale
Qu’explica sencillamente que tengo
Que ’bandonar mi ’speranza.

VERIZONE:
Ay, mortal con tu Selfone, yakking!
¿Porque necesitas hablar constante?
Est’es il’fierno, yo soy Verizone
Opero un red pa’ los damnados.
Tú, quien huele com’los vivos
Piensas que’stas tan importante
Que to’los muertos tienen q’oirte
Y tu conversazion’arrogante
¡Como te odio!

ORFEO
Potente servicio
Cuyas palabras vienen desde l’India
Todos necesitan tu red incredible
Para comunicar con alguien.
Quiero extender la mano
Y tocar a mi querida Selfone.

VERZIONE
Tu voz es muy bello, pero tengo
Q’ablar con mi supervizore
Il reino del’fierno, Plutone
¿Tu nombre completo?

ORFEO [dueta]
Orfeo me llaman
Lo voy a deletrear.
Oh-Erre-Efe-Eh-Oh

VERZIONE [dueta]
Ay dio’sta ’jueputa no dej’ablarme.
Me siento más cansado cad’ minuto
Yo debería ser’l aburridoso
Y zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ORFEO
¡Ay me! Él duerme.
¡Selfone, ya vengo!



ORFEO:
Selfone, can you hear me now?
Hell is so dark
I feel your pain.
I would hope that we will find each other
But the entrance of the Dead Land
Has a sign
That says clearly that I
Have to abandon my hope.

VERIZONE:
Oh, mortal with your Selfone, yakking!
Why do you need to talk constantly?
This is Hell, I am Verizone
I run a network for the damned.
You, who smells like the living
Think you’re so important
That all the dead have to hear you
And your arrogant conversation
How I hate you!

ORFEO
Powerful Service,
Whose words come from India
Everyone needs your incredible network
To communicate with anyone.
I want to reach out
And touch my dear Selfone.

VERIZONE
Your voice is very beautiful, but I have to
Speak with my supervisor
The King of Hell, Plutone
What’s your full name?

ORFEO [duet]
They call me Orfeo
I’m gonna spell that
O-R-F-E-O

VERIZONE [duet]
Oh, God, this sonofabitch won’t stop talking
I feel more tired with every minute
I ought to the boring one
And zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ORFEO
Oh my! He’s asleep.
Selfone, I’m coming!

Kilmer 2005

The Winner:

Lamentation Upon Surveying the Destruction of a Battlefield
By Everett Patterson CC '06

O Ares, cruelest of the gods!
Are man and thee somehow at odds?
That thou this curse of war should rain?
Upon these men before me lain?

O Zeus! O Jupiter on high!
That thou should let our young men die
And Hermes, swift as lightening struck
It's not your fault, but you still suck.

Judeo-Christian God, you too!
Don't think I have forgotten you!
Betrayed us, whom we once did praise,
So don't start up with your "mysterious ways."

O Death! O Death! O Deathy Death!
That thou should snatch this soldier's breath!
Thou hast with bony finger stung
The diaphragm beneath the lung.

Nay never shall they breathe no more
Nor beat their heart at bosom's core.
Their brains no waves; their veins no pulses
And in their esophagi no peristalsis!

O Vocative! O Vocative!
Not nom'nitave or locative!
That I, to distant concepts cry
To abstract nouns personified!

O Letter O, most foul vowel!
That thou should be the sound I howl,
Instead of "Ah!" or "oooh" or "Aye!"
But no, it's "O," and sometimes "Why?"

Why, ye gods of Rome and Greece?
Shall war and horror never cease?
O ye Roman gods and Greek
That I in the subjunctive mood should speak!

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1st Runner Up

Slumming it with the Metaphysicals
By Yonah Lemonik CC '08

O Beloved, who stands so resplendent,
Heavenly form, with pleasures attendant.
To thee I sing, with passions ascendant,
O Beloved, you glow so transcendent!

May I unhook your bra?
Oh, so you just want skip straight to the sex?
No?

Do not judge me, nor set me defendant.
Who has set you over me an intendant?
Are we both not of Adam descendant?!
Of original sin do not be so repentant!
Just cop me a feel of what framing that pendant.

I see I have shocked you O Venus Divine
But mustn't we tow the natural line?
Did not Eve become Adam's, as you become mine?
For procreation, the Lord did to us assign.

So do you want to have my children?
Okay, then can we just practice?

I'll rhyme you into fucking whether you want to or not.
For me to conquer you seems my heavenly lot,
Even though you aren't particularly hot,
And I could easily move on having missed my first shot,
It's just that I'm really quite lonely and desperate for human contact but
due to low self-esteem I am only able to communicate with women in
offensive and crude pleas for sex that scare them away before they can see
my inner beauty... ot.

Anyway.

I see now that to woo you my words must be sweeter,
Even though to my side you are starting to teeter,
And will join me in bliss like a lotususus eater.
But who knew better than Shakespearereater!
For clearly to win you, needs iambic pentameter.

O lovely, thou art crowned with golden tufts,
O lovely, may I use your thighs as earmuffs.

Still nothing? C'mon, that was stuff was golden,
You're not too good to put out for a sonnet.
I mean that would've gotten Queen Elizabeth out've her pants
and they named Virginia after her-
VIRGINia – not BARSLUTnia.
You know what? You're not enough good enough for this stuff.
I'm not going to waste it on you, not one single stich
Not one rhyming couplet, you dumb slutty bitch.

And now I'm alone, bereft of a lass...
But what is that I see, in that female morass?
Empty of contents, a double shot glass!
In the hands of a skank who is lacking in class.
Verily tonight, I'll be getting some ass.

(For I will approach her with standards descendant,
And say to the face of the drunken endendant)
“O beloved who stands so resplendent.
To the I sing with passions redundant...”

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2nd Runner Up

The Five Degrees of Unavailability
By Michal Richardson BC '06

Our sad tale begins with a girl you've not met
But whose plight and ill fate I impart with regret.
Should it ring any bells, either literal or mental,
I assure you that this is quite coincidental.

Our heroine spent her nights bawling and pining,
For what starts as desire ends up sounding like whining
That fills listeners with despair and fatigue.
"I can't have him," she'd cry,
He's so out of my league!”

They say two's company, and bad things come in threes --
But heartbreak, my friends, comes in five degrees.

The first degree starts with deep infatuation
But ends, as you've guessed, with dark humiliation.
And not one that fades with a hearty, drunk recap --
No, this haunts you and taunts you, like a shattered kneecap.

After weeks vascillating, one night in a groove,
She called up the boy and she made her bold move.
But as all "good ones" are, unless I'm mistaken,
The lass's first love was regrettably taken.

It takes nine for a ball club; fours always trump threes,
And heartbreak, dear friends, comes in five degrees.

She fell for her best friend from childhood, who
Liked everything she liked, from films to shampoo.
Their dialogue, swift, and as perfect as canon,
Hit her over the head like a playful Biff Tannen.

"Hello, McFly!" said she to herself.
"Tell him you love him, or stay on the shelf."
He had to talk to her, too, said the young man that day,
And promptly he shared with her that he was gay.

It takes two to tango, in times such as these --
When heartbreak, I'm afraid, comes in five degrees.
The only boy who could ever reach her
Was the sweet-talkin' son of a preacher man,
A gentle soul and a caring creature,
He loved her as, perhaps, no one else can.

The event that preceded the couple's demise
Happened when her folks looked into his clear blue eyes
To which she gave a resigned sigh and an, "Oh, sure,
At least he never questions if I'm keeping kosher."

And so shaiketzes, plentiful as fish in the seas,
Make a grave number three in our five degrees.

A new category sprang when our favorite lass
Trudged one September morn to her first day of class,
To discover with horror her passion's successor
Was taken, not Jewish, gay, and her professor.

How she toiled, embroiled with this odd contradiction!
This truth stranger than what the man taught,
Which was fiction.
If I may interject, lay down one solid rule,
Don't start diggin' on faculty members, you fool!

Not this one, with four symptoms of our dread disease
Which nears us to the end of five tragic degrees.

The man's four out of five, if you're tuning in now,
Were:  taken, gay, not Jewish, faculty.  ... Wow.
And yet Mondays and Wednesdays, at ten thirty-five,
The pitiful damsel'd never felt so alive.

Till the last "Unattainable" clause crossed her head:
To be more out of reach, he would have to be... dead.
Though designs on deceased make good citizens tremble,
Alexander Hamilton groupies, assemble!

Sing it, sisters and brothers and all, if you please,
Of the most icky of these five cursed degrees.


Fear not, our tale ends not in murder cold-blooded;
The girl's full young heart one day simply flooded.
She joined a support group to mend her transgressions,
Fell in love, of course, with the man running the sessions,

But she got over this one, for she's growing stronger
And her attention span's gotten just that much longer.
Time to time, the old suffering she'll pause to acknowledge
There's nothing better to do - because, hey, it's college.

But sure as my piano has sixty-four keys,
Heartbreak, patient friends, comes in five degrees.

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3rd Runner Up

A collection by Amitai Schmonz GS '09

Untitled

Girl from Nantucket
Tired of your crap limericks
Prefers haiku, thanks.

Three poems in the style of Ogden Nash

I. The Punther

Ogden Nash writes like a poet,
Except tersely, so you can stow it.
Should you behold a Nash oeuvre,
Prepare to swevre.
Better yet, if you’ve a question for Nash,
Don’t ash.

II. New York Real Estate

Often newcomers find that space is an issue.
To be able to turn around or stretch without punching a neighbor’s wall
might wissue.
But look on the bright side: at least when you’re home potential visitors
can’t missue.
Too large a flat and when your spouse goes on an errand on his or her way
out he or she won’t go to the effort to find and kissue.
Besides, you can make anyplace livable with a dash of creativity,
Or by purchasing expensive contraptions designed to add livity,
Or by holding a very small housewarming party and relying on guests’ givity,
Or, for those with a practical bent, oblivity.
Rich folk keep spare houses in Connecticut,
But you can’t just go off and buy one, it’s bad etiquette,
Unless you have the requisite breeding as predicate.
Does it truly matter? You betticate.
And the commute? Forgetticate.
In summary, if you want to live in the city it’s a matter of dealing with
small apartments and don’t even think about houses,
You’ve done well if you don’t sleep directly atop your neatly folded
trousers.

III. Reflections on Modern Prosperity

Dutch
Is clutch
But English
Is blinglish.

Ode from a Grecian Urn

O please, doth chill out. I’m a fucking urn.
O geez, I think that was pentameter.
Goddammit. See, you’re messing with my head!
Alone, I’d never mastered metric foot;
Your florid verse has elbowed its way in
And now I feel an ass. No, not that way,
Don’t be a perv. I don’t have any hands
Or really any apparatus for
The sensing of sensations in that sense.
What’s worse, I sense I lack your sense of rhyme.

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A Personal Favorite

Canadia
By Joshua Schwartz GS '08

Canadia, I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
Canadia, eleventeen dollars and seventy twenty cents, January 17, or whatever heathen calendar you use there
I can't stand all your moose(s)
Canadia, when will you give up the delusion of your sovereignty?
Go fuck yourself with your hockey stick
I don't feel warm.  Don't bother me.
I won't write my poem 'til I'm in my right mind.
Canadia, when will you be civilized?
When will you take off your flannel?
When will you look at yourself through the mocking eyes of everyone else?
When will you be worthy of your twelve citizens?
Canadia, why are your libraries full of books?
Canadia, when will you send your Mounties to Iraq?
I'm sick of your inexplicable existence.
When can I go to the black market and buy what I need with my real money
Canadia, after all, it is you and the Dutch who are weird, not the normal world.
Your moose are too much for me.
You made me want to be a hockey star.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
McGill is in Montreal, but I don't think anyone goes there, it's deserted.
Are you being serious, or are you some cosmic practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
Canadia, stop pushing, I know what I'm doing.
Canadia, the pine needles aren't falling (that's why they call them "evergreens!")
I haven't read a newspaper in months, do you even have a written alphabet?
Canadia, I feel sentimental about the moose.
Canadia, I used to be dyslexic as a kid, and I'm not rosy.
I drink maple syrup every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and try to make sense of your existence.
When I go to Montreal I get laid but never in English.
My mind is made up; there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me listening to Alanis Morisette.
Canadia, it's them bad mooses.
Them mooses, them mooses, and them maple syrups. And them mooses.
The mooses want to eat us alive.  The mooses are power mad.
Canadia, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel-eh?