# November Challenge - "Hills and Valleys"



## Chesters Daughter (Oct 31, 2012)

The theme for the October challenge, suggested by *vangoghsear*, is *"Hills and Valleys".

Remember that you may approach the subject in whatever way you wish, though of course site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board; it is disheartening to disqualify people for things like a trivial edit, but the rules will be applied.

This challenge will close on the 15th November 2012.

Please make sure that your work is properly formatted before pressing the submit button. Work edited after posting may be excluded from the challenge. Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussions should be posted in the Bards' Bistro.
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## Arcopitcairn (Nov 1, 2012)

Hills and Valleys

  The rhythmic sway of the trees when you loved me
  Their windy whispered breathy leaves, calling murmurs
  The mocking static hiss of the trees when you left me
  Creaking strain and gnarled knot, spitting autumn

  Your voice is the song that murdered heaven
  Once blue now…looks black, long gone
  You snapped the key in me…jammed tumblers
  And you turned from me and left me locked

  You’re so pretty


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## toddm (Nov 2, 2012)

*The Cliff-face Gentleman*

The cliff-face gentleman has missing teeth, 
which lay now in the surging creek below. 
One by one loosened by the passing seasons,
each succumbed to gravity and fell away.

He can see them down there, silent and aloof,
underneath the bright and crystalline current.
Eventually they will all be pushed downstream
never to be seen by his stony eyes again.

With a gaping frown, he peers down forever
as the night-shadows deepen upon him.


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## Chesters Daughter (Nov 2, 2012)

*Final Plunge (Mature Content)*

As she tumbles 
from the summit
she pops an extra pill
hoping it will 
push her tush
right back up the hill.

But with tons of bags to carry
she slides back into the valley:
a dreaded extended vacation
in a bed of dull damnation.

Where light and sound are outlawed
and all feeling remains bane
yet they shush her teenage lips
when she claims that she's insane.

Folks won't take her to a doc
for their rep is all they've got
can't let the neighbors know
offspring's mind is touch and go.

So she revs herself with coke
and sleeps with random blokes
to squelch her serotonin needs
as Ma and Dad ignore her deeds.

She's a regular at the store
run from a tenement door
where short-lived summits are for sale
to either swallow or inhale.

She's not choosy how she climbs
in these lonely trying times
and to make it to the top
she's sold everything's she's got.

Self medication demands funds
and now that hers are done
the vacuous valley is for keeps
what parents sowed must now be reaped

so she spies them as they sleep

for before she hits her bed
she'll share her plunge and they'll be dead
but she won't know remorse

now that the valley owns her

she's incapable, of course.


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## Our_Pneuma (Nov 2, 2012)

*Journey through the Seasons
*______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

During sowing season Longleaf and I spent its days in the sun scattering seed along freshly tilled rows. Sometimes a cloud would drift along casting its slithering silhouette atop our heads and deliver us—for a moment. Most evenings we’d rest upon a grassy hill and let the rustle of its wind-cooled waves serenate us. 

One seasoned day—much like the rest—ole Longleaf awoke shivering. And during that morning’s visit not a single word was spoken; a subtle nod, chased by a wink, was all that pine had in it. I knew then he was telling me to go enjoy the day, to make an adventure of it.

It was crawdad season then, so to the foot of the valley I ran and all along the nearest creek side. I trailed its mucky bank, poking at crawdad holes with a stick, searching of those creatures. I caught one that day and aimed it towards the deep blue sky delivering it just enough time to raise its pinchers and take a snap, then I slung it back home. 

_Little did I know that my journey home would be _
_preparation for the thievery of time. _

They had arrived long before my return. And I saw them with sweat above their eyebrows, their burgundy and black flannels peppered with sawdust, and each carrying the last of the branches—bringing a season to its end.


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## vangoghsear (Nov 2, 2012)

*I hope we rise*

I hope we rise
  when called upon
  fragile selves
  set shelved aside

  our fears affront, 
  place others ahead
  in this race we run
  in measured stride.

  It isn’t won,
  only finished
  this human race
  so often down

  trodden hill mired
  in mud fleshed
  wants, needs, 
  longings, desires

  till our failing foot falls find
  a way to help a sister or a brother
  help them reach the 
  high and dry

  for we are never lighter
  then when we carry one another
  for it is then
  we rise.


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## B. Storm (Brain Storm) (Nov 4, 2012)

Well, you know, BrainStorm’s my name.
So, Napoleon for the Hill,
But I got nun’ for the valays.

Wood and stone,
Yeah
Tall, green,
Don’t get it now, but man I swear, before I leave this scene…

In, my, minds, eye, clear blue skies, really sunny.
Tropical.
Yeah.
 I see, they’ll hear,
You just can’t take the heat.

A flock of birds, formation Vee.
I be in the lead.
I warn, you no heed, so…
Right over your head. Ewww.

Someone dropped a butt.
I no mean dat sexually.
Fire.
Watch it all burn…
Why you watching me?

I got my heap of green.
The fire, I let it go.
I buy a new hill anyway… never stoop so low
As to stick with something old.

Woah.
I am one rich DE-STRUCT-O!

Swear on my life.

You already know.


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 7, 2012)

The South Downs,

The size and the rounded, feminine shape
Say solidity and security.
They cut monuments. as long as man has
Lived here, in the life coloured, rolling hills.
Directly under the green turf there lies
The sea that was lifted when Africa
hit Europe, white chalk still in the final 
ripple. A last roll from steep, alpine slopes.

The turf is a frail sham, ephemeral
As the green slime coating a damp surface
You can overgraze, you can never plough
Acid rain, passing through, dissolves the chalk

These constantly climbing, falling hills are
Transient in time scales that are not man’s


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## Glass Pencil (Nov 7, 2012)

Man I invented cannibals
and we all held the season
in highest regard
like lonely mountaintops

and I shot down the demagogues
like tiny, flaming arrows
exploding ever closer
to holy parapets

now I wonder empty canyons
clothed in mighty fashion
by the shedding skin of snakes
who purport themselves as men

from airy peaks to bloody basins
I have borne this cross
adorned in holy martyrs
we are the righteous lost


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## Deleted member 49710 (Nov 9, 2012)

*stabat filia*

cradled within
the summits and slopes
of hills you won’t climb

the stamped circle of violets
surrounds the hollow-belly shell
where I

carved from you
last and least precious
etch lines in your nacred eye


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## Jeko (Nov 13, 2012)

*Rural love

*There we went
Over the hills and valleys
On the cobbled road we made together
Hills and valleys
Rolling forever

But to lay 'twixt the sand and sea
Where hills and valleys
Dare not breathe
To lay with the tide
To lay by your side
Rest the hills! Rest the valleys!
A new pledge, for you on the sand
On the shore of your love
You take me to the edge

But-
But what? But no.
Hills and valleys need no rest
And the cold pledge of the wave
Rushing over the bent crest of your kisses
To take it there!
Hill and valleys
Rolling forever
Rolling like air
Darling- 
I know I sound like
I'm walking away
But the hills and the valleys 
Are calling us both
And we both know 
If I'm going
You cannot stay


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## Chesters Daughter (Nov 15, 2012)

This challenge is now closed.


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