mentula

WARNING WARNING WARNING, POETRY ALERT, POEM ABOUT TO BEGIN.

[this is the very rough draft of my new spokenword piece]


The Language of the Conqueror

I am speaking to you in the language of the conqueror...and you are understanding me.

I am not speaking Apache or Hindi or Zulu or Welsh...I don't even know Welsh and it is the language of my fathers...of my people. But the conquerors stole that from me and now I am speaking in their language...and you are understanding me.

There are other languages of other conquerors: Spanish, Arabic, Russian, French but no language has had the impact of English because the people who speak English have been very good at conquering.

Ask a Cherokee or a Boer or a Japanese or a Pakastani...but not a Vietnamese.

But the first people they conquered were my people, the Welsh. And I want to apologize to all the rest of you for my people not fighting harder. We could have nipped this whole thing in the bud.

But we lost. We were conquered. My people were some of the original inhabitants of Britian...you know, druids, Stonehenge, King Arthur's people and the Anglo-Saxon invader (the people who's language would become English) defeated us. They even gave us our name. The Welsh call themselves the Cymraeg or Cambrian, but the Anglo-Saxons called us the Weleas, their word for "foreigner". They came to our country, took it from us and called US foreigners!

During one of our many argument, my Spanish ex-wife once called me an Anglo. She knew it would piss me off and she was right. "Hey, my people were fighting the Anglos before your people existed as a nation."

But I am Speaking to you in the language of the conqueror and you are understanding me.

But since you are here and since you are understanding me, we can do something the conqueror never had in mind.

So please, use the language of the conqueror to tell me about your people