# Presenting - the Straight Dope Message Board Poetry Sweatshop Anthology!!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [October 18, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227 "2009-10-18T17:01:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/1 "2009-10-18T17:01:13Z")

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Hello, everyone! As discussed in this [earlier thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=535243), anyone interested will have ONE HOUR as of the posting of the thread you are now reading to compose and post a poem. Here in the anthology, if you please. The poem must incorporate the following three words -

Transubstantiation

Buttocked

Overbook

used in whatever way the poet sees fit.

At the end of the hour, I will start a poll for readers to vote for their favourite poem. Here we go - best of luck to you all!!

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**Author:** ![AllWalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@AllWalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllWalker)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/2 "2009-10-18T17:26:30Z")

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I have two offerings. If they don’t make sense, it’s because it is now 4:20am.

Poem 1:  
To witches all priests must act snide,  
For transubstantiation aside,  
They’ve buttocked no lands,  
Common to both clans,  
Overbook unreason to both sides.

Poem 2:  
Overbook that church on the hill,  
Transubstantiation’s the thrill,  
That’ll draw helping hands,  
To that piece of land,  
Buttocked from good men ‘gainst their will.

If I’m only allowed one entry, pick whichever is better. I think that is Poem 2, but who knows.

---

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**Author:** ![Loisseau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2bfe46/32.png) [@Loisseau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loisseau)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/3 "2009-10-18T17:31:02Z")

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**Survival**

They fell on hard times after  
the Apocalypse. Little left  
to eat after consuming the hosts  
found in the church.

It wasn’t the transubstantiation,  
moldy wafers to the blood and  
flesh of Jesus, but the weak  
flensed for the strong.

Dead eyes flat and staring,  
they buttocked him, rump  
flesh roasted on a spit, thanking  
Christ for another day.

---

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**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/4 "2009-10-18T17:32:23Z")

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There is a madness in the stars,  
which fire shine like pale moonlight,  
moonlight that lit alight the dust,  
which come to rest upon grim headstones,  
buttlocked into stony soil,  
that before transubstantiation was flesh and lives,  
overbook by care and grief,  
and madness from never being fully lived.

---

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**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/5 "2009-10-18T17:36:47Z")

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Rte. 395  
the Hoover damn  
in midsummer  
binds the heat  
to a buttocked swoop  
of shale

We descend the lip  
of this winter bowl  
to marvel  
at the demands  
of ingenuity  
either in silence  
or inattention  
the usual transubstantiation of  
of travel

Across the Colorado  
the clouds  
are overbooked  
in small relief  
against the  
resolute  
grid

Where the only shadows  
in this Nevada canyon  
belong to us

---

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**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/6 "2009-10-18T17:37:05Z")

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This flight, overbook and forget:  
lost in the line and seven hours laid  
over in Madrid, where the food  
is saffron scent mixed with grease  
and American coffee. I don’t speak  
a word of Spanish, ask _When  
will the plane come?_

Snowstorm in Boston, ice  
and planes grounded; I’m here  
for the duration.

Eleven hours, and I can’t sleep,  
the Iberian night comes as shuttered  
storefronts of Starbucks. The barista  
smiles as I curl on plastic seats,  
asks something with tiled wolf-grin,  
eyes up and down my body, crawling  
slow and catching every inch.

Well-buttocked, his leather jacket  
on the bedpost, he shouts, at release,  
the name of a saint.

Sunday morning, the country has gone  
to Mass. During their transubstantiation,  
I dress, find the route from his apartment  
back to breakfast on an airport bench–  
_café con leche y churros_; it arrives,  
steaming and cinnamon, as the speakers  
echo to life and call for me to come:

The weather has changed; my plane  
leaves at eleven and, ticket-bound,  
I must follow it home.

---

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**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/7 "2009-10-18T17:37:16Z")

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Inevitable

Inspired by gravity water branches out  
Ramifying along the past of least resistance  
Factitious Facetious  
The root transubstantiates  
The root is the end, a short piece of land  
The branch rises  
Outgrowth  
Consequence  
First recorded in the French  
The branch becomes buttocked  
Callipygian  
Cacopygian  
Dasypygal  
Whatever  
Tacked on  
Hanging out  
Eating ham  
Waiting in the airport bar  
Glad to be paid because the plane was  
Overbooked

---

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**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/8 "2009-10-18T17:41:35Z")

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Your ideas are like  
a rainbow, and I yearn to catalogue  
the subtleties of every shade.

I want to inspire you  
as you inspire me  
To illuminate the skies with  
our double rainbow - the transubstantiation  
of other worldly light  
through earthly, vulgar rain.

And the sky,  
thus buttocked with two radiant arcs,  
our universal screen,  
reflects to all  
our questing, profound,  
unchaseable, unlimited  
dirty minds.

You can’t overbook this flight of fancy.

---

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**Author:** ![Loisseau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2bfe46/32.png) [@Loisseau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loisseau)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/9 "2009-10-18T17:42:03Z")

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I copied the wrong version; mea culpa!! This is correct:

**Survival**

They fell on hard times after  
the Apocalypse, an overbook  
of madness. Little left to eat  
after consuming the hosts  
found in the church.

It wasn’t the transubstantiation,  
moldy wafers to the blood and  
flesh of Jesus, but the weak  
flensed for the strong.

Dead eyes flat and staring,  
they buttocked him, rump  
flesh roasted on a spit, thanking  
Christ for another day.

> [@Loisseau](#):
>
> **Survival**
> 
> They fell on hard times after  
> the Apocalypse. Little left  
> to eat after consuming the hosts  
> found in the church.
> 
> It wasn’t the transubstantiation,  
> moldy wafers to the blood and  
> flesh of Jesus, but the weak  
> flensed for the strong.
> 
> Dead eyes flat and staring,  
> they buttocked him, rump  
> flesh roasted on a spit, thanking  
> Christ for another day.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/10 "2009-10-18T17:42:23Z")

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All the entries so far are great! Mine sucks. Here it goes anyway:

Transubstantiation is not one of my concerns  
my life is far more prosaic  
I tend to worry more  
about things like overbooked flights  
when I want to visit out-of-state relatives  
or fitting my short-statured yet large-buttocked frame  
into a pair of jeans  
but sometimes, when the chores are done  
and the child has been sent to bed  
I stay awake long enough  
to wonder why I haven’t been to church in so long  
and ponder things like transubstantiation

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/11 "2009-10-18T17:48:11Z")

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((I screwed up and posted the wrong version of the third break. Here’s the right one. Yeah, I’m anal)).

This flight, overbook and forget:  
lost in the line and seven hours laid  
over in Madrid, where the food  
is saffron scent mixed with grease  
and American coffee. I don’t speak  
a word of Spanish, ask _When  
will the plane come?_

Snowstorm in Boston, ice  
and planes grounded; I’m here  
for the duration.

Eleven hours, and I can’t sleep,  
Iberian night coming as shuttered  
storefronts of Starbucks. The barista  
smiles as I curl on plastic seats,  
asks something with tilted wolf-grin,  
eyes up and down my body, crawling  
slow and catching every inch.

Well-buttocked, his leather jacket  
on the bedpost, he shouts, at release,  
the name of a saint.

Sunday morning, the country has gone  
to Mass. During their transubstantiation,  
I dress, find the route from his apartment  
back to breakfast on an airport bench–  
_café con leche y churros_; it arrives,  
steaming and cinnamon, as the speakers  
echo to life and call for me to come:

The weather has changed; my plane  
leaves at eleven and, ticket-bound,  
I must follow it home.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/12 "2009-10-18T17:49:49Z")

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Transubstantiation is a word  
I don’t often have to use  
It means nothing to a bird  
And a Protestant would just refuse!  
While “buttocked” I’ve never even heard  
And yet I have nothing to lose  
It’s poetry, forsooth, and the words are blurred  
Overbook the poets, and we’d all have the blues.

It sucks, I know. Those are three tough words! So much for haiku…

---

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**Author:** ![tracy\_jo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tracy\_jo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracy_jo)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/13 "2009-10-18T17:55:56Z")

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the priest’s almost-feminine voice of my childhood would say  
peace be with you  
to the rumbling congregational response  
and also with you  
i remember that mumbled response from my childhood  
whenever we were in iowa to visit my grandmother  
the shining buckle on the bible belt of the midwest  
my father was raised as a catholic  
mass two times a week catholic school guilt and all  
my mother converted to be able to marry him  
my sister and i were baptised long before we could understand  
so our souls would be safe and secure in heaven  
a heaven probably overbooked with lost souls like mine  
one sunday dad woke up and asked mom what would happen  
do you suppose anyone would care if i didn’t go  
and mom scoffed at him  
the original minister of the two-buttocked bar stool  
she didn’t so much believe in all the catholic mythology  
she has opinions about everything and believes in sharing them  
but somehow the church has always been safe  
so the story goes that we skipped church that sunday  
that we never went back after that  
that dad gave up church for lent and it worked out okay for him  
we’re still a little careful  
it’s not that we believe in the whole wine as blood bread as body thing  
but why tempt fate  
if transubstantiation is possible you don’t want to be on god’s list  
the summer i was eleven i was told i’d go to hell  
i took the eucharist from the priest at grandma’s church  
not realizing that was sacreligious for a lapsed catholic  
to church or not to church was not my choice at eleven  
and i was pretty sure i was not bad enough to go to hell  
stealing a pack of gum couldn’t get you into hell  
lying once about taking a dollar from the dressser wasn’t enough  
letting leslie copy my math homework shouldn’t do it either  
but that latin mass never again sounded as sweet  
peace be with you and also with you  
was not as comforting to the me on the outside no longer a you

---

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**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/14 "2009-10-18T17:58:09Z")

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Though some no doubt will find it odd,  
I’d like to spend more time with God  
But can’t be buttocked to atone  
And all the flights to God have flown.  
Saint Peter wouldn’t overbook,  
So I in desperation took  
A Boeing 747  
As my chariot to heaven  
(A new and fresher variation  
On stale old transubstantiation).

---

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**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/15 "2009-10-18T17:58:50Z")

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Let’s abandon common sense  
And dabble in grandiloquence  
Try out our sesquipedalian  
Flights of great extravagance

Adopt (because it’s most prestigious)  
A phraseology most prodigious  
Instead of saying “shapely buttocked”  
We’ll throw them off with “callipygous”

Befuddlement our avocation,  
Our words require interpretation  
Don’t eat and drink, sweet Jesus, try  
Instead some transubstantiation

Verba obscura is assured  
When Latin is attached to words  
Not “overbook” - say “supra libri”  
And simple meaning is obscured.

Placing syntax under tension  
Surely brings miscomprension  
And perhaps a loss of friends  
Something that I ought to mention

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/16 "2009-10-18T18:02:07Z")

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“It’s getting ridiculous,” Charon said  
while shipping water o’er the gunwale,  
his fair-buttocked boat sinking with the weight of the dead.  
“Humans drunk on wine in church hoping that it’ll get them thru Immigration  
because they think it’s a magic hippie’s blood made special by transubstantiation.”  
“Now I’m more overbooked than that business with the plague  
at least I’m getting rich. And when I retire I think I’ll buy the Hague!”

---

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**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/17 "2009-10-18T18:06:30Z")

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The knife: checked or carryon?

Did I check it? I always bring the wrong things.

Maybe I’ll get a seat by myself.

They usually overbook. I’ll probably be stuck with that wide-buttocked woman with the colicky baby.

Will there at least be food? Probably peanuts. Well, that and a little transubstantation I’m good.

I should’ve brought food. I always bring the wrong things.

One step forward, two steps back.  
ETA: Wow, mine’s the worst, in a class by itself. I didn’t know I would be competing against actual poets!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/18 "2009-10-18T18:07:54Z")

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Kind of rushed the last verse - should be “miscomprehension” - and I wanted to get “condescension” in there somewhere – oh well.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tracy\_jo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tracy\_jo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracy_jo)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/19 "2009-10-18T18:13:14Z")

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What fun! Great job everyone-- I love seeing what people can accomplish under stress!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227/20 "2009-10-18T18:40:00Z")

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Wow. Here I thought I was pretty handy with a pen, but you guys are amazing! I am humbled. Let’s do this again!

[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presenting-the-straight-dope-message-board-poetry-sweatshop-anthology/514227.md?page=2)