~Now that my classes are finally over, I can feel free to post this. It's my final poem for my poetry class. We had to write it in a style that mimics one of the poems our teacher allowed us to choose from. Mine is to mimic Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Enjoy! ~T
In America did Ol' George
Found a land of amber and green:
There, sun kissed hands lifted and teemed1,
Hills and valleys covered in wild,
A revolution child.
And plush fields ran amuck with donkeys
the loitering fiends2 trailing
debris.
Barbed wired, open plains welcomed George's green face.
Where knees scraped and beggars chased the dust and sun.
Nights became day and time became displaced3.
Spread fingers watched it drain down the basin.
But wait! Freedom peeked around the mountains of green,
Light illuminating crimson and black mud...
Soaked ground, eerie, squishing to the pleasant beat,
Shining dull beneath the screaming booms of feet
and mothers wailing for their sons’ stolen blood.
And from this freedom, with ignorance on display
As if, as does4, with shotguns
and lions they lay.
A puissant5 dream, left
half-forgotten
and the déjà vu6, brushed aside,
trodden.
Amongst the chimes and clinks, beds lined with green,
Zombies7 littering and
feeding machines:
Within the chaos of these over-ripe coins,
black rivers rotted with the fruit of their loins.
Lackluster8 wandering,
beneath the fallen trees
between the melted sand and rusted beams,
the melted pot ready to burst its seams
as lifeless hands raise, questioning George's fees:
Blood of rivers flowed again, stopping short
Demanding, with hammering fists, the court!
The dying fields lay beneath the plows
waves of amber dream again;
when smiles echoed the truth and vows
Hills and valleys, un-tamed then.
Such an innocent plague buried there still,
those green valleys and those steep rocky hills.
A choir boy's Heavenly voice,
ballad chiming like a sheik9
He was an innocent green child
and from his pure white depths he trilled
telling of Antietam's Creek.10
How can I comprehend
the weary and the calm
the epiphany11
that must transcend12
from the tragedy of bombs?
I would change this wretched song!
No red valleys, no boned13
hills!
All who listen will hear what's wrong.
All will declare, Be Peace! Be Peace!
Divine eyes and a fresh green beast;
Do not cage her for the thrills!
Do not close your eyes, keep 'em wide.
For she will cleanse all with her tide,
Her white hands absolving14
our kills.
1Teemed: 1.) to
abound or swarm; be prolific or fertile.
2.) to be or become pregnant; bring forth young.
2Fiends: 1.) a
person or thing that causes mischief or annoyance. 2.) a person who is extremely addicted to
some pernicious habit.
3Displaced: 1.)
lacking a home, country, etc. 2.) moved or put out of the usual or proper
place.
4Does: a plural of
doe.
5Puissant:
Powerful; mighty; potent.
6Déjà vu: 1.) the
illusion of having previousy experienced something actually being encountered
for the first time. 2.) disagreeable
familiarity or sameness.
7Zombies: 1.) the
body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a
supernatural force,usually for some evil purpose. 2.) a
person whose behavior or responses are wooden, listless or seemingly rote;
automaton.
8Lackluster: 1.) lacking brilliance or radiance;
dull. 2.) lacking liveliness, vitality,
spirit or enthusiasm.
9Sheik: 1.) the
patriarch of a tribe or family; chief.
2.) a man held to be masterful and irresistibly charming to women.
10Antietam’s
Creek: Creek that was the focal point of
the Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War. The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest
single-day battle in American history.
11Epiphany: 1.) an appearance or manifestation,
especially of a deity. 2.) A sudden, intuitive perception of or an
insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated
by some simple, homely or common place occurrence or experience. 3.) a lieterary work or section of work
presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation or insight.
12Transcend: 1.) to rise above or go beyond; overpass;
exceed. 2.) to outdo or exceed in excellence, elevation, extent, degree, etc.;
surpass;excel.
13Boned: fertilized
with bone.
14Absolve
(-solving): 1.) to free from guilt or blame or their consequences. 2.) to set free or release, as from some
duty, obligation or responsibility. 3.) to grant pardon for.
