Abecedarian Madness

[Kate Burnham]

Ugh... I don't know, you guys. I have been in a completely different writing space, watching Civil War and social collapse documentaries and writing poems about/influenced by that, so I don't know where the hell my mind is going with these exercises. Did anyone see the Amanda Palmer music video cover of Pink Floyd's "Mother?" I watched it about a month ago and somehow it resurfaces here... Also, I've been snowed in for over a week, and my son doesn't like playing in the snow, so I've been in the house waaaay too long. 


"Mother, did it need to be so high?"

Ask myself—are you ready to

Burn yourself in your own flame,

Create something bright and green from

Demolished refuse, dead char? Deliver myself?

Euphemism.

Frailty in the desiring.

Good thing my mother couldn’t love me.

Had a child to save a marriage.

Inception is not conception,

Joking about the immaculate.

Kick myself for missing anyone or anything.

Move between the pillars of my adult childhood.

Nostalgia and desire—Jean Giono says there is no joy.

O God—I used to pray to You.

Prayer like a wand passing over the deep—abracadabra.

Question has no place in a child’s heart—doubt.

Radical children, did we all start out that way—

Saying our nightly God-bless-Mommy’s?

Trust broken when our Gods remain silent like walls.

Ubiquitous silence, and walls we built ourselves.

Veritas supersedes morality, so Nietzsche grew up.

Worlds collapse built on the beaches of mortality.

Xenophobia persists because we don’t live very long.

Yes, we all lost God when we lost our mothers,

Übermutter—thus spake

Zarathustra.

[whoismisterjim]

The fact these poems are coming from a place different than your current headspace is a good thing, no doubt. I think any exercise which moves or challenges the writing out of a current pattern or theme ultimately will make for stronger writing in the end, even if the poem from the exercise never escapes draft stage.

[laurenjacquish]

Kate! You are doing it. I'd say don't give disclaimers but I love your disclaimers! Lolz.

I say work on this poem like you mean it in a revision. By that, I mean closer attention to punctuation and finding ways to use enjambment where there was none...

This poem made you get personal, get weird philosophical, and also, you brought in the church, and it works! I would send a thank you letter to the History channel for skipping their latest marathon of Ice Truckers and Alaskan Duck Dynasty Hunters or whatever it is they are rolling these days in order to provide you with the inspiration to escape said programming.

[Kate Burnham]

I’ve actually been digging up docs off of Netflix and Amazon prime, HBO, etc. Lol. I have a secret love affair with Ken Burns, one-sided of course.

[lawrencemullen]

I really enjoy,

"Ubiquitous silence, and walls we built ourselves.
Veritas supersedes morality"

"Ubiquitous" and "veritas" are awesome "u" and "v" words to begin with, but also there's an interesting contrast between silence being ever present and artificial (self-built) walls, working almost against the idea of truth over morality.

[laurenjacquish]

Jan 18, 2018 15:36:07 GMT Kate Burnham said:

I’ve actually been digging up docs off of Netflix and Amazon prime, HBO, etc. Lol. I have a secret love affair with Ken Burns, one-sided of course.

I knew it was ken.

[maranda]

when our Gods remain silent like walls. < nice.


I agree with Jim about writing out of pattern. I forgot how fun it is to write poems outside of the current project.

[chello]

"Frailty in the desiring" and yes Maranda that line "when our Gods remain silent like walls." they are both wonderfully haunting.