Poetry competition CLOSED 2nd March 2014 2:40pm
WINNER
absinthe (Fats)
absinthe (Fats)
RUNNERS-UP:
RavenofSorrow
and sapph16
My greatest adventure will be ... ?
Poetry Contest Description
Write about a great adventure or accomplishment you seek
What's that one great accomplishment or adventure you still have yet to conquer? Skydiving? Surfing? Hiking a great trail or mountain? Diving the barrier reefs? Learning to play the guitar (who will you sing to)? ... For you rap artists - hit me up with that signature piece that will make the whole building rock when you sell out an arena
Up to two pieces
New or old (no previous winners)
Any style or format
Up to two pieces
New or old (no previous winners)
Any style or format
Ladies and gentlemen,
I feel that this award was not made to me as a woman,
but to the language that I have anguished to command.
To me, this language is foreign, a colonial inheritance,
an implant from the travails of our first independence.
It maleducated my people, established social, political
and cultural orders unsympathetic to our spirit.
It shaped our dreams and ambitions, lent our hearts to
that so-called universal truth of our foreign masters.
Thus, this language has enslaved my people, united my people
in the celebration of a lifestyle so abhorent, so inain
to our ancestors who spoke our islands' many tongues.
Tongues still spoken yet dying for tribulations such as these.
Yet this language - this literate language - frees us.
For it is not the language that we use in our illiterate lives,
that magnificent secret undiscovered life we keep away from you,
that multi-faceted soul that speaks only and only to our kind.
My appreciation of the high honour which the Swedish Academy
has thought fit to confer upon me is sincere, it is true,
an honour upon literacy, the English language and Western culture,
an illusion that keeps our preliterate tongues alive.
---
"Absinthe - Banquet Speech", The Nobel Prize in Literature
At the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden
The first stanza of this poem was inspired by
William Faulkner's speech at the Nobel Banquet
December 10, 1950
;)
I feel that this award was not made to me as a woman,
but to the language that I have anguished to command.
To me, this language is foreign, a colonial inheritance,
an implant from the travails of our first independence.
It maleducated my people, established social, political
and cultural orders unsympathetic to our spirit.
It shaped our dreams and ambitions, lent our hearts to
that so-called universal truth of our foreign masters.
Thus, this language has enslaved my people, united my people
in the celebration of a lifestyle so abhorent, so inain
to our ancestors who spoke our islands' many tongues.
Tongues still spoken yet dying for tribulations such as these.
Yet this language - this literate language - frees us.
For it is not the language that we use in our illiterate lives,
that magnificent secret undiscovered life we keep away from you,
that multi-faceted soul that speaks only and only to our kind.
My appreciation of the high honour which the Swedish Academy
has thought fit to confer upon me is sincere, it is true,
an honour upon literacy, the English language and Western culture,
an illusion that keeps our preliterate tongues alive.
---
"Absinthe - Banquet Speech", The Nobel Prize in Literature
At the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden
The first stanza of this poem was inspired by
William Faulkner's speech at the Nobel Banquet
December 10, 1950
;)
Adventures I seek
Married in the house for god sake
The lord soul to take
I seek life
Knowing there is nothing for me too do
So I dream my life without you
Advcentures of heart break
Of loving songs hiding the brake
TO drive
TO never be blind
For my ears to work right
Even if surgery is the fight
Being hard of hearing
Deafing symphony
I hate life but happy to live
Adventures of trees and hive
Allergic to water
I no longer wish to leave
I stay in my house
Laying like a mouse
wanting to break free
even its to climb a tree
Adventures I seek
Just so I can reach my peek
Married in the house for god sake
The lord soul to take
I seek life
Knowing there is nothing for me too do
So I dream my life without you
Advcentures of heart break
Of loving songs hiding the brake
TO drive
TO never be blind
For my ears to work right
Even if surgery is the fight
Being hard of hearing
Deafing symphony
I hate life but happy to live
Adventures of trees and hive
Allergic to water
I no longer wish to leave
I stay in my house
Laying like a mouse
wanting to break free
even its to climb a tree
Adventures I seek
Just so I can reach my peek
well.. id say a journy into your own mind.. its the great unknown.. i was thinking up what a trip into my head would be like. i came up with this..
Electric Lady Land
There’s a place I go inside my head
When on the inner paths I tread
When my eyelids turn to led
And I sink into my bed
Pulsating pictures point the way
As I drift by purple pelican bay
where fully flavored gum trees sway
and lickable liquorish leeches lay
I dived into a sea of dreams
In a yellow submarine
A thousand miles past Pepperland
I came to a shore of purple sand
Where drifting dreamers in a daze
Were not the slightest bit amazed
to see bicycling butterflies
Gliding past them towards the sky
I wandered through a fractal forest
To the big rock candy mountains
Eventually I came to rest
By a cascading crystal fountain
In its clear and jeweled waters
An angels face reflected there
With a rainbow row of flowers
Placed within her silver hair
But as I turned around
She was nowhere to be found
Somewhere trees were falling down
But they never made a sound
There’s gold at the bottom of the well
where devilish dooly doppers dwell
They spend their spare time racing snails
On the backs of turtle shells
Cellophane sorcerers seal seven secrets in pristine prismic pyramids
and place their cryptic scriptures on the wall where shiny silver beetles crawl
Electric ladys lounge near a lagoon of liquid light as laughing leprechauns chase speedy sprites
I watched a circus show that featured flying purple people eaters
And alien acrobats turning somersaults and wintersaults
without ever coming to a halt
I sat with Humpty on a bench
And told him "None of this makes sense"
He replied with a sudden burst of laughter
"does it even really matter?"
I said" maybe not but anyway
I must be off I cannot stay.
I haven't much more time for play
Ill come again some other day."
So I caught a flight with Mr. Kite
Until the land was out of sight
I opened my eyes at 6:15
And couldn't quite remember where id been
Electric Lady Land
There’s a place I go inside my head
When on the inner paths I tread
When my eyelids turn to led
And I sink into my bed
Pulsating pictures point the way
As I drift by purple pelican bay
where fully flavored gum trees sway
and lickable liquorish leeches lay
I dived into a sea of dreams
In a yellow submarine
A thousand miles past Pepperland
I came to a shore of purple sand
Where drifting dreamers in a daze
Were not the slightest bit amazed
to see bicycling butterflies
Gliding past them towards the sky
I wandered through a fractal forest
To the big rock candy mountains
Eventually I came to rest
By a cascading crystal fountain
In its clear and jeweled waters
An angels face reflected there
With a rainbow row of flowers
Placed within her silver hair
But as I turned around
She was nowhere to be found
Somewhere trees were falling down
But they never made a sound
There’s gold at the bottom of the well
where devilish dooly doppers dwell
They spend their spare time racing snails
On the backs of turtle shells
Cellophane sorcerers seal seven secrets in pristine prismic pyramids
and place their cryptic scriptures on the wall where shiny silver beetles crawl
Electric ladys lounge near a lagoon of liquid light as laughing leprechauns chase speedy sprites
I watched a circus show that featured flying purple people eaters
And alien acrobats turning somersaults and wintersaults
without ever coming to a halt
I sat with Humpty on a bench
And told him "None of this makes sense"
He replied with a sudden burst of laughter
"does it even really matter?"
I said" maybe not but anyway
I must be off I cannot stay.
I haven't much more time for play
Ill come again some other day."
So I caught a flight with Mr. Kite
Until the land was out of sight
I opened my eyes at 6:15
And couldn't quite remember where id been
AFTER
My greatest adventure will be
When death comes to me
For no matter how strong
My faith might be
To die is to venture
Into deep mystery
For no articles or photos
Of the realm of the dead
Have ever been featured
In 'National Geography'
My greatest adventure will be
When death comes to me
For no matter how strong
My faith might be
To die is to venture
Into deep mystery
For no articles or photos
Of the realm of the dead
Have ever been featured
In 'National Geography'
