# Last line challenge



## Olly Buckle (Feb 8, 2010)

As only Leyline and I entered poems for the last challenge (Plagiarisms from anon excepted) I asked if he had any ideas for a new challenge and he came up with this:-

I suggest using a line from one of my favorite poems: "Amanda Barker" from Edgar Lee Masters' _Spoon River Anthology_:

     Quote:
                                                 In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust                                 
Use as a _last_ line.


An excellent suggestion I feel. The usual form, post your entries below, but I think it would be good to keep comments and other posts that are not entries until the end, or start another thread for them maybe, the idea is to make comparison for voting easier and give newcomers an idea, thanks.


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 27, 2010)

This is not easy, I notice even Leyline has not entered his own challenge. I had real trouble trying to think of something to lead to it without being trite (Some may say I am anyway), It has resulted in it being a bit short. Still I have done what no-one else could so far.

   Youth, so they say, should be carefree and gay
  Never counting the hours of the night and the day
  But I could not face people, with issues of trust
  In my youth, therefore, I entered the portals of dust


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## Gumby (Mar 27, 2010)




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## MJ Preston (Oct 5, 2010)

My life had become a lie
Day by day I dismantled the person I was
Discarding my fear and replacing it with fable
Then one day when I was 17 there was nothing left
No one to turn to.
In a last hurray I injested the poison, 
I was a lost soul 
In my youth, therefore, I entered the portals of dust 

*A tad biographical and not really much of a poem, but I look forward to the work of others.*
**
*Mark*


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## Scarlett_156 (Oct 14, 2010)

Pretty cool! 

Raddled by pain and age at my last stand I raged;
Two vast plinths barred passage
And mutely mocked my disability. 

The road behind churned to muck,
With gaping holes where bombs had struck--
Back I could not dare go, the future likewise barred to me. 

"I'll return," I vowed, "though this age-blighted arm of mine can scarcely lift its spear. Somehow I will."
No breath replied, but only yawning darkness beyond those mighty stones that towered drear. 

So back I struggled, and further back, and fought bitterly, and wandered far off track. 
But in retreat I found strength,
And courage I had thought forever turned to rust. 

Ages passed, but in time I faced the plinths once more, no longer withered, sad, or sore. 
(I had only but to roar, though! and down they crashed.)
In my youth, therefore, I entered the portals of dust. ​
Not wanting to risk losing my job by spending hours and hours on this, I'll just stop here!


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 15, 2010)

Mark, I really like the image of "Discarding fear, replacing it with fable", I reckon it qualifies as poem okay, even if it could do with tightening up.
Scarlett 156, it never ceases to amaze me how different people's takes on the same thing can be, a testimony to the diversity of people, I don't want to interfere with the day job, but keep up the writing.


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