POETRY CONTEST

Complete the poem:

Background

The poem Kubla Khan was written in 1798 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He had been reading a book about Emperor Kublai Khan after using some laudanum (a derivative of opium) when he fell asleep and had a dream. In the dream he watched the building of a palace, heard music during the construction while a voice recited the poem. Then he awoke and he remembered the poem of several hundred lines which he began writing down. He wrote 50 odd lines when he was interrupted by a neighbor who stayed for several hours. When Coleridge went to finish the poem from his dream he couldn’t remember the rest. He left the poem fragment unpublished until 1816 after reading it to Lord Byron who urged him to publish it.

The unfinished poem:

Kubla Khan
(or a Vision in a Dream, a Fragment)
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree,
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! That deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain was momently forced,
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man.
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid.
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle around him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew has fed.
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

End of fragment

Jorge Luis Borges in his book “Professor Borges A Course on English Literature” in his chapter on Coleridge conceives the poem Kubla Khan as the second phase in the unfolding existence of the palace. It begins with a palace that wants to exist not only in eternity but in time. Historians researching Emperor Kublai Khan discovered that the design of the palace that he actually built in China came to him in a dream. However after two centuries nothing remains of that palace. Then several centuries later the dream continues in Coleridge’s poem. But the poem is only a fragment and the dream of the palace is incomplete. Which brings us to the present several hundred years after the opium dream and the palace seeks to exist for eternity and all time by completing the fragmented poem.
And thus I suggest a CONTEST to complete the poems missing one hundred or so lines in the most fulfilling and imaginative way.

There are no restrictions on how this may be accomplished. Since the poem was complete before the ending was forgotten, one way might be to contact the Coleridge entity in the information phase spacetime just after waking up. Another approach would be to merge with the palace essence that wants to exist and has twice manifested itself in the dreams of the Emperor and of Coleridge.
Then again writing as a creative process is a mystery and the results often surprising. Just see what comes.

When satisfied with your poem send it in PDF, text or Doc to jamescrawfordholmes@gmail.com. The contest ends January 1, 2021 and all submissions will be read and rated by a panel of 3 judges to be selected in 2019.