Exciting times around here as the entires for the Good Beer Blog Poetry Slam are starting to come in with eleven days still to go. The first is from Andrew Jones of I don't know where:

Olde Enkidu unwashed bestial man
Took bread & beer from prostitutes hand
Gilgamesh’s trickery custom of the land

Ancient oral sages tell of beasts & beer
Nectar of the gods & Sumerian cheer
One man’s tomfoolery turns another’s to fear

Seven beers & Enkidu’s heart soared
Liquid gold was mightier than the sword
One man’s weakness is another’s restored

Ninkasi hymn of devotion & bliss
Was it the beer or the prostitute’s kiss
That sent Enkidu into the human abyss

What elixir turns animal to human
As it passes through the intestinal lumen
For us today it makes us subhuman

A tender shoot nimbly rises from red-brown soil,
pressing ever skyward, drinking sunshine, guzzling rainwater;
quietly transforming rude, elemental material into sweet sustenance.

Gentle green flowers concentrate noble resins,
weaving intricate entanglements on imposing lattice;
anticipating olfactory bliss and gustatory revelry.

Earth-woven, handcrafted artwork in liquid!
With each swallow I encounter nature's bounty -
I am content.

Prizes? We have prizes:

• I do have twelve tickets to TAP NY 2008 where there is free beer and great food for the lucky prize winners. Each ticket allows one person in for one day so I am giving away four tickets so three couples and/or drinking buddies can take it in 26 and 27 April 2008 at the Hunter Mountain Resort in the Catskills in upper downstate New York.
• For prize winners further afield than the eastern mid-Altantic and southern New Englandish zone, two new never worn XL t-shirts, one for Jolly Pumpkin of Dexter, Michigan and another for Wellington Brewery of Guelph, Ontario.