Poetry competition CLOSED 26th July 2019 8:31pm
WINNER
buddydog
buddydog
RUNNERS-UP:
snugglebuck
and AnonymousBystander
Unique Places
Poetry Contest Description
Write a poem based on a unique aspect of a place. It could be about a country, state, town, or any location.
My original idea about this topic was about how unique my state is. Everyone loves maple syrup and creemees. It got me thinking that every location has its own 'thing'. It can be personal to you or something generally known in that area.
*One entry per person
*Keep the length reasonable
*Any type
*One entry per person
*Keep the length reasonable
*Any type
The Heart Of Georgia
My grandma taught the golden rule
From inside of a one-room school
My grandpa drove an old farmall
So the corn could grow green and tall
I learned all about life in a pair worn out boots
When you find your Sunnyside, you’ll find your roots
You can throw a rock from sign to sign
But don’t think we’re left back in time
You’ll never have to call on a friend
Cause we love each other like we’re kin
Two black marks on a long street
A Super Sport that I bet you can’t beat
A blue eyed blonde from the flatwoods
Down on the Big Sandy it never felt so good
Sunday preachin’, dinner on the grounds
On the back row with the lost and found
We all feel so rich when we’re on that land
Cause it’s were our ancestors made their stand
If you listen when the moon is full
You can hear that guitar squall
You’ll know the foxes are rockin’ the fur-shed wall
Hold on when the Georgia pines start to sway
Cause that piano is gonna play
We all have a different name, but we’re all the same
Doin’ the best we can with no one to blame
They call us country, hillbillies and rednecks
But I don’t care, you can’t cash their checks
All those big cities are just a waste of time
I seen a few, so be careful of the ladder you climb
No matter if you’re from a J, D, or a T-Ville
Never let that concrete change the way you feel
Just be proud you’re livin’...
Unincorporated
From inside of a one-room school
My grandpa drove an old farmall
So the corn could grow green and tall
I learned all about life in a pair worn out boots
When you find your Sunnyside, you’ll find your roots
You can throw a rock from sign to sign
But don’t think we’re left back in time
You’ll never have to call on a friend
Cause we love each other like we’re kin
Two black marks on a long street
A Super Sport that I bet you can’t beat
A blue eyed blonde from the flatwoods
Down on the Big Sandy it never felt so good
Sunday preachin’, dinner on the grounds
On the back row with the lost and found
We all feel so rich when we’re on that land
Cause it’s were our ancestors made their stand
If you listen when the moon is full
You can hear that guitar squall
You’ll know the foxes are rockin’ the fur-shed wall
Hold on when the Georgia pines start to sway
Cause that piano is gonna play
We all have a different name, but we’re all the same
Doin’ the best we can with no one to blame
They call us country, hillbillies and rednecks
But I don’t care, you can’t cash their checks
All those big cities are just a waste of time
I seen a few, so be careful of the ladder you climb
No matter if you’re from a J, D, or a T-Ville
Never let that concrete change the way you feel
Just be proud you’re livin’...
Unincorporated
Written by buddydog
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Anonymous
English Lane
I sit in the old servants quarters of
an English stately home. Behind the wall,
a partly cobbled green lane which I love.
Going down the lane from this aging Hall
in a wooded glade is a metalled road.
Going right, past a white wash Lodge withal
a scattering of dwellings now bestowed
by this beautiful walk through bright sunbeam.
Toward a bridge under which a burn flowed
where trout swim stationary in the stream
and, sometimes in the woods, roe deer are seen.
Continuing on this road as a dream
especially at dusk, where before we've been.
Road and stream like rod and snake reach a ford,
where two foot trout shimmer, quiver, careen
across to spawn; a sight to be adored.
Where stream and road cross a ford, where we roam -
pleasant and relaxing with health restored.
Along the lane where the trees make a dome,
around the corner and starting to climb,
the single track lane will then take us home.
If I stood up and rotated around:
each way you look, this journey is background.
an English stately home. Behind the wall,
a partly cobbled green lane which I love.
Going down the lane from this aging Hall
in a wooded glade is a metalled road.
Going right, past a white wash Lodge withal
a scattering of dwellings now bestowed
by this beautiful walk through bright sunbeam.
Toward a bridge under which a burn flowed
where trout swim stationary in the stream
and, sometimes in the woods, roe deer are seen.
Continuing on this road as a dream
especially at dusk, where before we've been.
Road and stream like rod and snake reach a ford,
where two foot trout shimmer, quiver, careen
across to spawn; a sight to be adored.
Where stream and road cross a ford, where we roam -
pleasant and relaxing with health restored.
Along the lane where the trees make a dome,
around the corner and starting to climb,
the single track lane will then take us home.
If I stood up and rotated around:
each way you look, this journey is background.
Written by AnonymousBystander
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MINNESOTA
Siberian express from the northwest
Blizzard’s fury descends without mercy
Great Gitche-Gumee lake effect
Unpredictable ferocious flurries
Sodas in quilted parkas
With balaclava covered faces
Look like walking grenades
In terrorist masquerade
Thirty below wind-chill
Trapped in a polar vortex
Instantly freezing exposed flesh
Amusing King Boreas Rex
Chisel ice from the windshield
Kick snirtbergs from the wheel wells
Now’s the time to ride and slide
Now’s the time to do or die
Heavy vertical blow
Zero visibility on the road
Just follow the other guy
He’ll know where to go
Go slow you’ll get stuck
Go fast spin like a top
Oncoming traffic will crush
White knuckles a must
The temperature drops into double digits
Hospitals man surgeons in shifts
“If flesh turns black, we must hack”
Noses, ears, fingers, toes, an occasional penis
Causalities mount from fridge
Ice blocks break from building ridges
Killing pedestrians in an instant
On a lake a Subaru becomes a submarine
Teen couple parks on secluded lane
Succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning
Found days later in naked embrace
Thawing on a table in a city garage
On average colder then Alaska
Frozen like a witch’s tit
Minnesota can be one
Unforgiving son-of-a-bitch!
Blizzard’s fury descends without mercy
Great Gitche-Gumee lake effect
Unpredictable ferocious flurries
Sodas in quilted parkas
With balaclava covered faces
Look like walking grenades
In terrorist masquerade
Thirty below wind-chill
Trapped in a polar vortex
Instantly freezing exposed flesh
Amusing King Boreas Rex
Chisel ice from the windshield
Kick snirtbergs from the wheel wells
Now’s the time to ride and slide
Now’s the time to do or die
Heavy vertical blow
Zero visibility on the road
Just follow the other guy
He’ll know where to go
Go slow you’ll get stuck
Go fast spin like a top
Oncoming traffic will crush
White knuckles a must
The temperature drops into double digits
Hospitals man surgeons in shifts
“If flesh turns black, we must hack”
Noses, ears, fingers, toes, an occasional penis
Causalities mount from fridge
Ice blocks break from building ridges
Killing pedestrians in an instant
On a lake a Subaru becomes a submarine
Teen couple parks on secluded lane
Succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning
Found days later in naked embrace
Thawing on a table in a city garage
On average colder then Alaska
Frozen like a witch’s tit
Minnesota can be one
Unforgiving son-of-a-bitch!
Written by snugglebuck
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Cornish cream
My home it lies in the deep South west
Gods country, now lets take a manifest
A peninsular, its toe and foot in atlantics swell
White clay, that turns upon the potters wheel
Fine paper without its body has no feel
The schools of art at their easel's
Lit scenes, spectacular in coast and field
Stannary towns and cities where fortunes out of TIN were made
The imprint that they left, to antiquate
Mines worked out and left to flood
A legacy of industry that non can ever grub
On top the engine house, its chimney soars
Proudly stands aloft, not the tip of coals black spoil
On the cliff above the beach, inhabited now
A film crew, "Ploldark" the romantic lead with bronzed torso
As rugged as the scenery, wild as the beast of Bodmin moor
The surf it breaks on the north coast shores
World champions sparkle on their long boards
The first steam engine that ran on wheels
At Camborne's great fare, its replica appears
I sit and eat my lunch
Like miners sat in the dark and stench
A pasty, filled like my county
Its beauty ever haunting me
With tasty things all meant to please
And now we have lithium beneath our feet
ay me ansom, cream to charge the batteries
Gods country, now lets take a manifest
A peninsular, its toe and foot in atlantics swell
White clay, that turns upon the potters wheel
Fine paper without its body has no feel
The schools of art at their easel's
Lit scenes, spectacular in coast and field
Stannary towns and cities where fortunes out of TIN were made
The imprint that they left, to antiquate
Mines worked out and left to flood
A legacy of industry that non can ever grub
On top the engine house, its chimney soars
Proudly stands aloft, not the tip of coals black spoil
On the cliff above the beach, inhabited now
A film crew, "Ploldark" the romantic lead with bronzed torso
As rugged as the scenery, wild as the beast of Bodmin moor
The surf it breaks on the north coast shores
World champions sparkle on their long boards
The first steam engine that ran on wheels
At Camborne's great fare, its replica appears
I sit and eat my lunch
Like miners sat in the dark and stench
A pasty, filled like my county
Its beauty ever haunting me
With tasty things all meant to please
And now we have lithium beneath our feet
ay me ansom, cream to charge the batteries
Written by slipalong
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THE BRISTLECONE FOREST CONTINUES TO BURN INSIDE ME
At 10,000 feet
The world takes your words
Away
Pneumatic action slows
The eyes and ears
Appear to expand
It occurs to you
To drown in silence
Both heavy and light
The world takes your words
Away
Pneumatic action slows
The eyes and ears
Appear to expand
It occurs to you
To drown in silence
Both heavy and light
Written by SatInUGal
(Kumar)
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nzadi o nzere: Land of a River's Gamble/ the C-K Influence
just with ridiculously miniscule
of reserve hung in its huge, now
spatially emptied out gular pouch
a migratory bird
swims across salty currents
& alien smelling vastly
untested airs
spurs into an approaching irony
the dramatic demarcating centric
imaginarily circling (a)round for long
-this dragging equatorial line
their stealthy dense canopies in an eerie silence ...
indecipherably winking in midnightish notorities
wide-open & giggling whorish wayward river sprints wild
with thickly clogging logjams alongside the nondescript
jetsam flotsam
storms ablaze with fiery sun & thunderbolts all at once
yet the jungle’s juggernaut cartels emerge out of nowhere
turning earth inside out as the stirred hornets out of nest
in buzzing bewildered firing spree of spewing vengeance
homes somewhere nearby inundated by tearing down fury
uprooted cycads & thrown out roofings & all the suspended
choking dusts of hopelessness
swirls in a cyclonic haze marring the weary bird's longing visions
whilst a local in distress digs out diamonds beneath the rubbles
his teeth flash crazy for once brighter than sandy diamonds
& wait, not just that...also does reach on
to the dug out mysterious hued minerals..that he
quickly tightly bundles his stinking hunchbacks to trade...
saddeningly only to the all grabbing
reigning cartel lords of cruelty
...eventually as if infectiously desperate
like them, he brutally loots & slays other
tribe as birth right
on his bloody way wherever back drifting fragile as a mere survival
he's goes down as an unaccounted corpse in the arrogant militias’
power play- the piled up mass-grave pits, eating innocence
the raging red bird in flaming burns
circles the blackening gloomy skies in search of steady greens
sees only the camouflaging terrains riddled with hypocrisies-
cross-dressed woodfishers & kingpeckers in elegiac cacophonies
predacious crocodiles are the mammoth let out garden lizards
& the simply humbling crows bloat huge as greyly croaking ravens
the untamed bird’s
a solo messenger of its own stance
an ignited apocalyptical Kali’s spark
to bring down the maddening whole…
those eccentric evolution & thriving abound
selfish genes- purely in parasitical plunders
Written by summultima
(uma)
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Holiday Haiku III
overcome with glee
emotions drip from my eyes
in my Valhalla
emotions drip from my eyes
in my Valhalla
Written by delanee
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La Libertad, La Libertad
Whenever I have seafood it takes me back
To the smell of the ocean and sea breeze
To the wet black sand and warm waters
Triggering wonderful childhood memories
The palm covered cabanas were full with people
With visitors, vendors, children playing in the shade
Small local fishing boats and nets in the distance
People walking along the water like a parade
Ever since I can remember we used to go there
Captured in pictures of more simple times
The music, the food, the thundering waves
I remember my grandma being in her prime
We’d go to that beautiful black sandy beach
Almost every month like a family tradition
Where the white sand was so hot you had to run
And the weather was just the perfect condition
I recall the fish, shrimp, crab all the good food
There was nothing I would turn down to eat
Coconut drinks, the beer, the cheer, the atmosphere
The sound of cumbias playing in the heat
Photographs of my mother as a young woman
Images of me as a baby in my father’s arms
The hot tropical sun giving me a dark golden tan
It’s just one of my old country’s little charms
Whenever I have seafood it takes me back
To the smell of the ocean and sea breeze
To the wet black sand and warm waters
Triggering wonderful childhood memories
The palm covered cabanas were full with people
With visitors, vendors, children playing in the shade
Small local fishing boats and nets in the distance
People walking along the water like a parade
Ever since I can remember we used to go there
Captured in pictures of more simple times
The music, the food, the thundering waves
I remember my grandma being in her prime
We’d go to that beautiful black sandy beach
Almost every month like a family tradition
Where the white sand was so hot you had to run
And the weather was just the perfect condition
I recall the fish, shrimp, crab all the good food
There was nothing I would turn down to eat
Coconut drinks, the beer, the cheer, the atmosphere
The sound of cumbias playing in the heat
Photographs of my mother as a young woman
Images of me as a baby in my father’s arms
The hot tropical sun giving me a dark golden tan
It’s just one of my old country’s little charms
TRUE BEAUTY OF LIFE
To see the true beauty of what life has to offer one must go were the flowers and trees and plant life grows within in its natural state of being, for have you ever gone to an open field filled with so many flowers of colors of the rainbow, for have you ever notice the trees with its branches reaching up towards the destine skies like arms reaching out to feel the sun rays and the warmth.
For to see life in its true form you have to go were the flowers grow untouched and breathing life into the air that surrounds us as human beings, for you must go out into nature to see the true beauty that this world offers just from a seed for with each flower each tree and every plant, it has a purpose and reason for its existences whether to feed or continue with the process of creating of life.
For just like every animal of every different type like from the birds that fly to the bears that roam the woods to the smallest creatures like the ants and the bees, for everything in this life has a reason for being even the water that flows through open streams so next time, when you find thyself walking through the forest just take a second and look around you and appreciate all the wonderful creations of this place we call planet earth.
For to see life in its true form you have to go were the flowers grow untouched and breathing life into the air that surrounds us as human beings, for you must go out into nature to see the true beauty that this world offers just from a seed for with each flower each tree and every plant, it has a purpose and reason for its existences whether to feed or continue with the process of creating of life.
For just like every animal of every different type like from the birds that fly to the bears that roam the woods to the smallest creatures like the ants and the bees, for everything in this life has a reason for being even the water that flows through open streams so next time, when you find thyself walking through the forest just take a second and look around you and appreciate all the wonderful creations of this place we call planet earth.
Written by Stoney223
(WOLF BAY33)
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Flames Burn Quietly.
...was walking
(no particular reason)
- most the city would
call it a death-wish
looking in the eyes
of street men;
some wear jail time well
others, preparing for it
crossed the road.
Stood in the garden
of that lifeless church,
under a jacaranda tree
meaning something
in summer months.
The old building smells of piss
the concrete
flakes like paint;
pity they
don't flake together
cleaning bad graffiti
off the personality
jumped over
the short, black steel fence
saw the happy lady
with a soup kitchen,
trying to force some
kind of nourishment
into kids
that believe
glue
is cheaper than
life without it.
Greeted her
she smiled
wearing friendly air;
she’d take your lunch
for someone else,
given enough time
(a feminine Robin Hood)
stepped into the
garden of remembrance
now overgrown
in need of a shovel
and creative vision.
Read a note on
the parish notice board
"You missed the bus!"
it said.
I walked home slowly
mumbling something
stupid about
time travel,
old churches
and tattoos
concluded
the thought process
in a quotation...
"Sometimes shutting up
is solace enough".
-x-
Written by RevolutionAL
(Alistair Plint)
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The place referenced here is Braamfontien, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Oakland, Californa
Twenty-seven years of my existence, scattered around and
Hidden within the precious gems of Oakland, where I grew
Up. It is like you keep rediscovering every forgotten nook.
An airport with tearful and heartfelt goodbyes with a hand
That is hard to let go of. With every minute passing through
It gets more difficult to part ways with a place that hooks
You with its charm and hometown feel. It is like luggage,
Lost but then found again among the panoramic views of
The city. The memories that are fresh yet years old, like
The boy I loved here with my heart among the wreckage
And the floorboards that creak beneath my feet. A love
That is lasting longer than the sky’s quick lightning strike.
Hidden within the precious gems of Oakland, where I grew
Up. It is like you keep rediscovering every forgotten nook.
An airport with tearful and heartfelt goodbyes with a hand
That is hard to let go of. With every minute passing through
It gets more difficult to part ways with a place that hooks
You with its charm and hometown feel. It is like luggage,
Lost but then found again among the panoramic views of
The city. The memories that are fresh yet years old, like
The boy I loved here with my heart among the wreckage
And the floorboards that creak beneath my feet. A love
That is lasting longer than the sky’s quick lightning strike.
Written by eswaller
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