Formal Poetry Contest (2004)
Contest ended on 31 October, 2004.
Will ALL poets who participated please update us with their current E-mail and postal addresses?
The Winners
Anne Maarit Ghan, The Ballade of the Bulge
Peter G. Gilchrist, The Gift
Aaron Wilkinson, Prophet of Sod
Choosing only three winners was extremely difficult.
Thanks to ALL of the talented poets who participated in our contest.
We wish that we could reward everyone for outstanding work.
Sincere thanks to family, friends and fellow poets who were roped in as readers and judges!
(All poems ©2004 by their authors. Reproduction prohibited.)
Author’s note: A ballade is not the same thing as a ballad. A ballade has a very strict, formal structure. It consists of three 8-line stanzas rhyming ababbcbC written either in iambic tetrameter or iambic pentameter. This is followed by a 4-line envoi with the rhyme structure bcbC. The same rhymes are used through the entire poem -- capital C's indicate that this same line is repeated at the end of every stanza. Traditionally, the poet would address the envoi to his patron, generally a person referred to in the poem. These days, however, it is almost always addressed to Prince, i.e. “The Prince of Darkness.” Most ballades are rather silly. -- AMG
The Ballade of the Bulge
Anne Maarit Ghan
I'm
getting fat, this is no lie.
I wish by eating I'd weigh less.
By looking for an alibi
I try to hide my foolishness.
It seems my lack of willingness
to use control with food and drink
Is bringing me to great distress.
It's pushing me towards the brink.
Alas, I do identify
myself with those who so obsess
about their need to satisfy
a hunger that is limitless.
Where is the pill that can suppress
an urge so huge (at least I think)?
It wins the lead in viciousness;
it's pushing me towards the brink.
I follow fads, because I try
to learn to cut away excess.
The books on dieting I buy
but reading them brings no success,
instead a fearful emptiness.
My future seems as black as ink.
My choice does not yield happiness.
It's pushing me towards the brink.
Prince, you're behind this loneliness
that makes me drown, that makes me sink.
It seems no power I possess.
You're pushing me towards the brink.
The Gift
Peter G. Gilchrist
He shuffled through the dust on blistered feet
towards a stand of trees that seemed to drift
on endless waves of suffocating heat.
Each painful step he took was one more gift.
A salty crust patrolled the lines that mapped
his leathered neck and rimmed his bloodshot eyes.
An old hyena stopped to watch and snapped
the air behind him. Vultures filled the skies.
He hobbled on. In prison he had learned
that pain is just a fragile state of mind,
but every night his troubled dreams returned:
the maggots gorged on friends he’d left behind.
His only crime was one of faith. He taught
what he had learned: that men should live without
a master’s chains. The ruling class did not
condone that view. Their soldiers sought him out.
The beatings were routine. His ribs were cracked
so many times that pain became a friend,
a sharp, familiar stabbing pain that wracked
his wasting frame and never seemed to end.
His fellow inmates died in swollen mounds
of abject misery. He knew he’d meet
an equal fate. He sensed the coursing hounds
of Death pursuing him on padded feet.
And so he fled. One night when darkness swept
across the veld and clouds blocked out the light
he climbed the prison wall and slowly crept
beneath the waiting camouflage of night.
For months he travelled trails and dried-up streams
that led him south, towards Caprivi Strip.
Each crimson sunset bled from anguished screams
of Africa and stained her battered lip.
He crossed the Okavango after dawn
and walked towards a brilliant golden hand
that reached for him with every ray it shone.
A welcome spread across the glowing land.
He dared to dream of freedom now, and ached
to hear his children chase each other ‘round
the yard outside his home where sunlight baked
the grass that struggled through the trampled ground.
He longed for Flora’s touch each time he slept
to soft cicada symphonies that filled
each lonely night. He prayed, and sometimes wept
in gratitude; the baying hounds were stilled.
By custom, most Umbundu men will break
the ground for garden plots. Their wives will then
maintain the crops. The fathers also make
a plot to give each child who reaches ten.
He wasn’t there to break the ground this year.
His hoe lay idle in the shade beneath
a baobab. A solitary tear
dropped gently into dust and formed a wreath.
A thousand miles, and maybe more, he walked
on feet that bled with every step. His face
was chapped and badly cracked. His mouth was chalked.
He hobbled slowly on in God’s embrace.
One heavy afternoon he saw a mist
ascend above a tall mopane tree.
He knelt and prayed. The smoke that thunders* kissed
the Rev’rend John Kapuka. He was free.
A painting hung within our home, of two
apostles at the tomb of Christ. ‘Though John
was first, it wasn’t he but Peter who
went in to find that Christ’s remains were gone.
In Dondi, Grandpa Sid received a note:
“Remember well the picture on our wall,
the first to come is here”, my father wrote,
and Flora wept when Grandpa came to call.
The months that followed must have dragged for John,
although he never let it show. He found
what work he could, and shortly after dawn
one day I watched him start to break some ground.
He danced across the soil. Each rhythmic swing
his borrowed hoe inscribed implied a hand
above an ochre drum. I heard him sing.
His words of thanks poured out across the land.
His friends had found a way to get his wife
and children out and ‘though he had to wait,
he knew they’d come. A vastly better life
awaited them. He danced to celebrate.
On Christmas Day, when church was done and all
the toys and gifts lay strewn across the floor,
our new adopted uncle came to call.
He stood and smiled and waited at our door.
“I have a gift for each of you.” He said.
His empty hand stretched out to point the way,
and five excited children cheered. He led
our greedy throng to where the presents lay.
A hectare, more or less, of garden spread
in five symmetric plots that greened the land.
I understood. I leaned my tousled head
on Uncle John and gripped his calloused hand.
________________________________
* Mosi-oa-Tunya – “The smoke that thunders” – Victoria Falls
Prophet of Sod
Aaron Wilkinson
My Grandpa told me 'fore he died,
"The greatest sin of man is Pride.
Best never see the city, son,
Don't ever leave the mountainside.
It's yours since you became a man
So make your way as best you can,
'Cause someday this'll all be gone.
A sacrifice to Babylon."
Now owing he's a proper fan
Of God and all His Ten Commands
The parish loaned him resting ground
On proper consecrated land.
Some folks begrudge his tiny grave
(Which others think befits a slave's)
But it'll grow as green a lawn
As ever grew in Babylon.
I'll credit him for dying brave,
He never bitched and wouldn't cave
When life was tough. But he was strict;
And now it's time to misbehave.
I'm gazing on a sea of green,
The finest crop you've ever seen.
The guy who showed me how's a con
Who shat some time down Babylon.
I'm more than used to living clean,
Which mostly means you’re living mean.
Now working through the harvest time
I wonder how it could've been.
My ladies bloomed a pound apiece
Of buds with some to spare for grease.
I bummed a ride from cousin John,
And trucked the lot to Babylon.
We talked about our newest niece
And kept an eye out for police.
Instead a pack of bikers showed
And took us for some lambs to fleece.
The city steamed from off a way.
It's skyline's shroud was coffin gray.
I knew that I'd become a pawn
To all the sins of Babylon.
The wicked men held us at bay.
I warned them there'd be Hell to pay,
"Repent yourselves! Desist or else
You'll never see another day."
Their guns were drawn, the crop was found,
I prayed to him whom I'd been bound,
"Send lighting Grandpa! Cast it on
These scavengers from Babylon."
They might have given us a round
'Cept just then, straight from out the ground
A rumbling rose beneath our feet
And lightning from the sky unwound.
It made the wicked men explode
To rain down dead upon the road.
Towards the sun that brightly shone
We made our way from Babylon.
I never sold the mother lode.
Instead we used the grass to goad
Our simple minds along a course
Towards examples Grandpa showed.
Some strength of will is all it takes
To learn from all your life's mistakes.
And now I needn't scrape or fawn
For broken meats from Babylon.
There's nights I dream, right racked with shakes,
Of needing truths while stuck with fakes,
Until my newfound balance sets,
Then, stilled and calm, my soul awakes
To visions of the other side
Where Grandpa's eyes burn righteous pride.
Consider, friends, next risen dawn,
What price you pay to Babylon.
(All poems ©2004 by their authors. Reproduction prohibited.)
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