Hi all!

I've been extremely busy for, well, the last two years! Haha! Just about everything that was used to customize this page's layout is gone. I've reset the panels, so every block or segment is back to its original state. FileDen has gone dead, and permanently it seems (no surprise), so that just gave me a further excuse to finally revamp this page.

I do have a new blog site at Tracks In The Forest. Please hop on the link if you want to catch up on my writing or look up some Anime and JPop reviews.

However, I'd like to get this blog up and running again, at least half as active as it was three years ago. Before that happens, everything's gonna be terribly messy for the next week - or two, or three - until 1) I've constructed a layout that I'm happy with 2) I've gathered enough material for a new digital art shop 3) I've set aside enough of my writing (apart from reviews) to actually have an active IMVU blog again.

In the meantime, please bear with me, excuse the mess, and try not to trip on the clutter ^o^

Later folks!

-- John

Best Wishes, Happy New Year, and Blessings to All! ^_^

-- John

Here are the results for the first Weekly Poetry Corner contest. Congratulations to our top three entries! Thank you all for participating and sharing your craft with the world.

Many thanks once again to NightFahl for her help on this project!

First Place and 1000 Credits: 
Nishette
Surface caressed by daring fin
Rippled throughout the glasslike pond
Whose surface but for this gentle touch
Reveals only what lies beyond
A microcosm of fins and scales
Faint rustling of which cannot be heard
As those outside merely look upon
And wonder if the peace is but absurd
As humans cannot live without disharmony
does it make sense for things so less
who live without a hurt bestowed
to at our ideal of war best?

Second Place and 500 Credits: 
ImpLord
Her gaze alone is the bowl
That contains my love for her
I am the goldfish forever swimming
Round and round inside its watery cage
I flutter and float
Dancing attendance to her attentions
Feeding upon her smiles and words
Unknowingly cast as tidbits that I eagerly devour
I carelessly let the fin of my soul
break the surface of my emotions
causing it to ripple and shimmer
before I return once more to the imagined safety
the depths of my fear provides


Third Place and 250 Credits: 
VBerry
Ensnared and trapped in all of her visible beauty
Reaching to the surface to see the world beyond the glass but chokes
Circling in motions causing small forms of ripples in the water
Delicate and fragile with intricate designs embedded on her body
Watching gills flap on both sides of her body, steady breathing
Swimming with balance and graciously using those golden blue fins
I realize how lucky I am despite how small she might seem to others
To have a being like this one present in my home.


Honorable Mentions

Levi
At what they call “The park of Riddles”
Seldom seen, is its middle
Lies a Koi pond so small and little
Like that of a puddle after a summer drizzle
But the pond is empty,
No fish to be seen
And neither has there ever a Koi been
In this pond of naught but water serene
No Koi fin has rippled the surface
No Koi to be seen
Why then the Koi pond in the middle?
Why no Koi in “The Park of Riddles”
Why no Koi in the pond so little?
That my friends, is the riddle


CuteGurl2006
The beauty of a goldfish and its habitat,
is truly unexplainable
The way the water may ripple when the fish jumps
or, the way the fish paddle's with it's fin,
as it explore's the koi pond, is truly amazing
The different colour's they all come in,
and the different shapes and types, is truly magnificent.
Also most people find that watching goldfish
swimming around, calm them down because how
the surface is calm and complete.

Here are the results for the first Weekly Poetry Corner contest. Congratulations to our top three entries! Thank you all for participating and sharing your craft with the world.

Many thanks as well to:

NightFahl for her advice and brainstorming, and for helping me get the ball rolling on this project.
3Dragons for his generous contribution to the prize fund.
The Judges for um, judging, yeah...

First Place: Sherilynne

Cut across the paintless skies
The lugsail blows through the fire
Burning in his brimstone eyes
And the bones of a lad, so young and spry
Wielding his cutlass, he sprung to life
Carelessly mocking, ignoring the cries
Embracing the darkness, his heart, he surrendered
Slowly numbing himself with hearty rum
Not even the tendrils of a woman can heal him
As he stays in the blue yonder he calls home
Wondering to himself if his heart still bleeds
The colour crimson of his sash

First Runner-Up: ImpLord

Some things are better left unspoken
Some secrets I’ll take to my grave
At the behest of fair women
I’ve set down my cutlass
Their challenge did I brave
I’ve completed your quest
I ask her sash as my token
I’ll bear it close to my heart
A symbol of my proclivity
And the words left unspoken
I’ve doused the lugsail
My junk drifts with the tide
With the ichor of inspiration
I salute what is left of my senses
May my muse be my guide.

Second Runner-Up: Scoff14

Through a thick fog moving with stealth
they come to rob your wealth
Be sure to dodge the bloody cutlass,
for they will steal your health
Through a break in the fog the prey did spy
deadly black ship, bloodred sash,
the jolly rodger, now a battle cry
Hoist the mainsail, fill the lugsail,
the stakes are high
The chase is on through open sea
Black hearts want from those that flee
Blood will spill on wooden deck
ignoring desperate plea.

Honorable Mentions

by Nolemire

There once was a corsair with a sash
Whose methods were considered quite brash
Though his cutlass was sharp
His lugsail 'twas merely a tarp
That hasty corsair with a sash.

by 41n4

Twas a pirate empty sash
Skin bones only last
Left of me daily strain
No food hunger
Fortnights pain
Infiltrated to the mast
No pirates remain order past
Night haunted what use to be
Hysterical laughs spirits seen
Mad ghost scurvyed me
Decayed flesh rotten teeth
Mutiny calls the ship to us
Many dueled cutlass to cutlass 
Battered torn every lugsail
Bloodstained torn rail to rail
All struck down not by mans fate
Twas Davy Jones that they faced
Drifting grey splintered ship
Forsaken journey no mans trip

by SexysassyNichelle

Cutlass shining bright
Lugsails swaying in the wind
Red sash on pirate
Argh say I, plundering towns
Current rolling wild
Skull and Crossbones flying proud
Cannons blasting loud
Gallows call, off with his head!

by RoseLynnJohnson

As the lugsail moves in the gentle breeze,
The captain watching the ocean scene,
The waters have quieted, The world is calm once again.
Has he wipes his cutlass clean of it’s crimson taint,
He remembers the things that happened on this horrible night,
His heart aches for all his lost crew,
How could he have been so blind.
As he watched the crew pick up the dead,
He slips his cutlass back in his sash,
His ignorance got his crew killed,
For that he must pay.

by Misaoi

A black lugsail
A sturdy mass
Riding upon dark waves
Into the eyes of a storm
Men heaving
Pulling
Pushing in time
Chopping ropes with a bloodstained cutlass
A sash upon their victim's waist
Red rum dripping down their neck
Tis the life of a pirate
Plain and simple
Perilous and merciless
Yet seemingly rewarding

by Nyxanu

Ahoy, me mateys, lend me your ear,
My shorthanded crew will soon leave the pier.
Hoist lugsail, weigh anchor, head for the high seas,
Arr! A few more good sailors, our journey would ease.

Two last scurvy dogs rush to join the rag crew,
The pillage and plunder soon will ensue.
Longing for booty, and lots of good rum,
And least ye forget wenches by the harem.

The buccaneers sailed for the deep blue,
As the port shrank from sight they began to argue.
This is MY rum, savvy? Hands off or I'll shoot!
Said Cap't "You DRUNKS don't deserve a dime of my loot!"

"Then mutiny!" came the first mate's shout,
Then from his sash, his cutlass he pulled out.
Chaos did follow, as the crew chose their sides,
After an hour of swordplay, all traitors had died.

Those that remained heaved a sigh of regret,
The black sailed ship barely cleared the inlet.
"Return we must, scurvy dogs, to fill out our crew--
We cannot sail this vessel with a Captain, plus two."

Cobwebs

Lost in a maze of gray, sombre clouds of ash
sift through the air, fall softly on naked death
and into dust crumbles, slowly wafts away
with each dragged footstep and belabored breath.

Like dunes beneath the hammer of a zephyr
whipped like slaves, bruised and battered
shift and ripple snakelike, coiled in pain
dance to martial rhythm, and inevitably wane.

Wind sweeps the grains harvested off bodies
tattered and withered, molted down to bones
piles thousands high the screams and moans
the sobs and laughs into a corner, forgotten
save for the stench of fungus, spoiled, rotten

Memories sundered, tangled in weaves
in gruesome shadow's viscid web ensared
laid in time's muddy trench, broken, despaired
predators wrap the offerings with silk
to feed on the remains among their ilk.