VERSUS: Round Three

Five fierce contests

Welcome to VERSUS! This is the third edition of our novel, ekphrastic, virtual slam pitting two writers against one another. For each H2H contest, both writers were given the same image and produced a creative response in a style of their choosing.

In this punchy post, eleven combatants are squaring off in FIVE cracking contests:

The Dope Doula VS Edward Swafford VS Samantha Lazar (three-way contest)
Phillip Hurt VS Laura Catanzano
Carolyn Jones VS Maisie Archer
H. R. Sinclair VS Artsapien
Heather Zoccali VS Dondi Springer

Voting is ANONYMOUS and ENCOURAGED. The voting process is exclusive to Black Coffee Creative subscribers. Email subscribers (those without a Substack account) can also cast votes!!!

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Image by Edgardo Huamán Cáceres.

Shut up!
the words stick, bitter, asinine
as I choke and gasp and grasp and err for air,
waking in the rubble of devotion.
Palms raw, arms cold and unlit;
the ritual gone,
its touch still ghosting
across blueprints beneath my skin.
I am the anger that festers after wrongful death,
the question exiled from sound.
Once, I was lover and witness,
sentry, thief, commandeered
now I am nothing,
dissolved into the empty space
that always follows ache.
My body, stripped for parts,
lies abandoned,
no longer driven to search in shadows
not for meaning, not for you.
I drift,
a hollow design,
burned into the aftermath,
waiting for breath,
but only finding
no solace, no silence.

© The Dope Doula 2025

These constriction-laced metallic rows of correction tie 24 teeth together in
One. Singular. Swansong.
My futile front teeth (flatter than flat-earthers) fall further behind as these fucking lateral incisors fasten a-r-o-u-n-d and catch the light when I smile.
It’s so unbecoming.
Years of harsh bristles and recidivist mainstream toothpastes (chockers full of sorbitol) catalysts for my recession, pockets of peregrinate calculus hardening the biting edges.
How much bone have I lost from periodontal disease? When will my face start to sag?!
Modern dentistry has no SaLt-ShAkEn solution other than soluble salt rinses (?) and fairy flossing, yet every fucking tooth aficionado chides and lectures when they eye my fetid, rosy, INFLAMMATION FLESH.
The lugubrious legacy of bacteriomes chews through thought-bubbling ideations of a healthier mouth.
And there goes another tooth???

© Edward Swafford 2025

I’m awake
the gloom of the day or
the drown of my dream
undercut
pounding
heart beats spade

I fear breathing
swallowing might rouse
the cobra of my spine
fangs
stalactite
x-ray vertebrae

I whiplash to
the crash of ‘92
if the bones fuse
dysphagia
phobic

venom threatens atlas
who cradles the weight
of cognition-creativity
consciousness

I compensate– overcompensate
yogic postures
analgesics for the pain
sometimes I
disassociate
compound injury plus age

I degenerate
and now my joints drink
from vessels fueled with flame
sacral
dragon-tail
frozen as an onyx shell

I speak
I shout
I chant
I heal
cobra dragon–
just dare me not to sing

© Samantha Lazar 2025

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Image by RDNE Stock Project.

I wear a veil of platinum to cover my precious face
A face never not yet worthy of knowing the sun
I wear it to muzzle my words
A voice never not yet worthy of knowing your ears

Platinum, soft enough it allows your judgements to penetrate,
        to make an impression
Platinum, hard enough to provide security from my insecurities,
        to protect myself, from myself

Perhaps one day I will emit a sense of desirability and absorb you,
        take the lifeforce from you like a flame steals a moth’s

Just ONE more injection
 Just ONE more $100 designer face cream
  Just ONE more cosmetic surgery
   Just ONE more credit card to foot the bill
    Just ONE more...
     Just... ONE more

Just one more and I’ll be ready to share my honesty

In the meantime, I only give you my three inches of truth
It’s all that my bravery will allow

My truth where purity oozes from my pores
Where my truth is soft as silk yet hard as nails
It comes from the little girl that once didn’t give a damn
It comes from the left elbow that proudly shows the scars
  the scars from scrapes from falling from my bike at nine
    and sliding into 3rd base when I was eleven

But now at 29 and now at 31 my reflection betrays me

With this platinum veil that I wear with shame
      I see a dull and distorted manifestation of myself
I avoid all eye contact and focus only on my blemishes
My screams echo back, I only focus on the lies

To be stuck in here, behind my veil
I yearn to free myself from my pain

If only for a moment I could release the girl
     the girl who didn’t give a damn, and give her the reins

Allow her to someday pull back the veil
Unshackle me from the platinum chains I placed upon myself
and show an extra few inches of my truth

But for all those perfectly flawed stars to align

I think...
I think I need just ONE more...

© Phillip Hurt 2025

rumors rife of vengeful 
ruthlessness crooked cops stage a 
crooked trial domestic violence on the 
docket she'd been scheming for 
awhile. 

the road parted, and she hooked a left 
shotgun blast and bruises blurred 
her truth scribbled into chalk lines 
judge and jury, let her burn 

they say she left him in the dark- 
cold-blooded shot between the eyes. she's 
content to let them believe it, this prison pales to 
that which she left behind. 

there'll be no clemency for Clementine she 
hangs her head, feigning shame but 
she's free from torture's grasp, and 
she sleeps well on this cell-block bedframe 

it was only ever him or her, 
and now he's buried, six-feet deep 
she looks around her iron fortress and remembers- 

she's always 
looked damn good 
in orange. 

© Laura Catanzano 2025

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Image by Pitt Rom.

I have been drifting
delirious,
disarmed;
upon the tide of wanton want
for what feels like centuries.
The sea is an hourglass
turned sideways,
its sands slipping
silently sideways
stealing seconds,
then seasons,
from a life already
waterlogged with waiting.

Hope is my only buoy
that soft,
flickering fever
that someone,
somewhere,
might hold me
as if I were not already
cracked by longing.
Desire roots itself deep
into the marrow of me,
twisting through this soul
so intimately acquainted with ache.

I have been dreaming adrift
for a lifetime;
on the gentle ripple of illusions
that swell and shimmer,
while I tread water,
ever on the brink.
And then,
you.

You, with hands like harbours,
arms more certain than stars,
pull me into your gravity.
You who dares the dastardly depths
and the voracious voids
where others have sunk without sound.

We float,
you and I;
a constellation uncharted,
spiralling through salt and starlight,
toward that unreachable horizon
where dreams dissolve
and longing lives.
We bask in the
serendipitous symmetry
of our mirrored madness.

But love is no shelter
from the storm.
Distraction dances us
past gathering shadows,
those clouds that conspire
to unravel even the wildest wishes.
The wind keens;
the sea claws.
Rain becomes requiem.
And your hands;
once heroic,
fail to shield me
from the ruthless rhythm
of the ocean’s ancient grief.

We are torn;
separated mid-sentence,
mid-touch,
our fingers a filament
snapped by the furious tide.
I am pulled under;
away,
the sea,
my cradle,
my coffin.
Neptune’s voice
becomes all things;
roaring,
relentless,
a psalm of submersion
that drowns even my name.

Now, I drift
dormant,
disremembered.
Unmoved by the ebb,
unshaken by the flow.
The waters whisper,
but I am beyond their reach.
Here, in this liminal silence,
the tide takes what it pleases.
And I…
I let it.

© Carolyn Jones 2025

smother me in your sapphire vision
satin seas of expectation pose
sleep-subtle threats, certain derision

locked inside your dream, where no one knows
lost girl, groomed and guided by your hand
led astray, yet a future I chose

wait and wish for a rescue so grand
wisdom dawns in a sky-blue caress
will I stay frozen, or make a stand

reign cold no more, your evils confess
renounce this hold, abandon these lies
resistance is mine, no more this dress

consent ordained by my drugged sighs
I never asked for this, did I?

© Maisie Archer 2025

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Image by Engin Akyurt.

A gem in my belly.
A curve in my throat.
Arms folded like a shield.
All to cover my wounds.

Lips glued with the tongue.
Breath silted along the lung.
Choking the voice that sung.
All to cover my wounds.

Naked. I stand concealing the pain.
Naked. I stand holding the breath.
Naked. I stand knowing the truth.

I stand still.
   In void.
      In storm.
I stand still.
   In dark.
      In oblivion.
I stand still.
   In silence.
      In chaos.

Hiding the scars in my torso.
Squeezing my breast to my chest.
Slaughtering the dreams still alive.
All to cover my wounds.

Gut extracted off the might.
Sockets sinking off the sight.
Shoulders leaning off the weight.
All to cover my wounds.

Naked. I rebel with my dumb noise.
Naked. I rebel with my bruised arms.
Naked. I rebel with my daggered eyes.

© Artsapian 2025

Do you see anything there
where you stare,
do you notice anything on my bare
skin or in my dead eyes,
did you catch a glimpse of something
in my stance
a hint of grace per chance
in my face
I brace for the impact of your words
Without a flinch.
I. Feel. No. More.

Stand up.
Stare back.
Shout and scream.
do what you will
or what your god wills you,
for what you fear will happen to you
or hope happens to me,
I care not.
I. Hear. No. More.

I let go of my story many moons ago,
watched it flail in the wind
in all its folly
for I know history belongs to the victor
and only the hunter will tell my tale.
But that will not change my mane.
I will not lose my roar however quiet you see me.
You are not worth my breath,
but my bite is all the same.
I. Speak. No. More.

So it is.
Gaze upon my bare body
look passed my soul
pay no mind my mind
and block out the human;
makes for an easier kill.

It certainly works for me.

© H. R. Sinclair 2025

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Image by Ivan Babydov.

They called it salvation
spit flying
tongues swarm flies
in beams
Choir clawed "hosannas, abrtsreckana"
from wet plaster
Mother bent back
cracked twig
eyes milked over
mouth dripping cheap god-wine

Hands caught her
slick oil
trap-whispers
She floated
edges gone
sin popped like soap

When I was small
I watched spines split for Him ~
not mine
Walls breathed Him
I pressed prayers into my pillow
till dawn
Nothing
Once I faked His tongue ~
sweet rot
dripped lies like honey
they clapped
called me holy
bullshit
Smoke and spit
my mouth stayed empty

I bit my fist
Jealousy, hornets in my jaw
Sometimes
wanted her ruin mine
my stage
my filth poured in their laps
their hands scrubbing me raw
Prayers soured behind teeth
milk clotted
in a kitchen no one opened

Devil-slaying package
Dad sinking to quilt static
TV snow sealing his eyes
Eric hammering bedframe
ghosts rattled loose
walls dumb
Brian picking hush
from my throat, berry-soft
night after night

God took tithe
someone drank salt
no one touched steel
Mine alone
cold gospel under pillow
breath swamp-thick with hush

Knob turned
I rose
Steel kissed neck vein
pulse flicked fish under ice
No blink
No mercy
Hissed ~
come again ~

I…… open….. you….. slow

Devils inside?
Fine

Keep your spit
oils
catchers
fly-swarm tongues

I slit my knot
licked my wounds
Blade sleeps under bed
silver whisper
if holiness claws the latch
again.

© Heather Zoccali (BrutallyBeautiful) 2025

I ain’t here to bow, I’m here to break bread with the beast.
You lit that smoke like a sermon, but I feast where you preach.
You drip mystery and menace, cool… so do I.
Difference is, I write resurrections in every goodbye.

You think lashes and ashes make a doctrine divine?
I bled ink on stone tablets just to fracture the spine.
You cloaked in the cloth?
I was wrapped in regret
But I tore through that veil like a soul in debt.

So spark that flame, shit...
Let the fiction breathe, chest heaves.
While I spit verses that make conviction leave.
You got smoke?
Cool. I’ve been fire baptized.
Made peace with my past, now I weaponize my rhymes.

You the test?
I’m the testimony.
You the myth?
I’m the moment only real ones know me.

So puff pride like incense.
Strike that match if you must
But I’m the one they quote
When the church turns to dust.

© Dondi Springer (Vision2Verse) 2025

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*VERSUS graphics created by H. R. Sinclair.