LJ Idol Week 9: Death Become My Essence

[alycewilson]

This is my entry for Week 9 of LJ Idol. This week's topic is "All Hat, No Cattle."

Abstract art in a parking lot; oil on pavement

death becomes my essence

gossamer wings of
squid glisten at the bottomless
abyss, a mystic cloud of porcelain sugar
raps lightly, clamoring in my ancient yearnings
i have injected thorny abstract distress
into the mad penumbra of my ebony consciousness
surreal fragments descend to the brim
of the darkening gulf
careening to the resounding roar
of forlorn frenzy
hypnotic trance, condemned existence,
my invincible soul is a small
trumpet
playing Taps

for a poem
by a bad poet
to the garbage disposal

---

This was inspired by one of the more overblown submissions I have received to my online literary magazine, Wild Violet. That particular poet was given to excessive use of modifiers, as this poem emulates.

Comments

[alycewilson]

LOL I know exactly what you're talking about. At the time I was in grad school, back in the late '90s, that sort of writing was the rage. I called them "academic poems," because they were largely written by people within the academic community for their peers: naval-gazing musings filled with archaic references. I found inspiration back then in Asian forms: image-based, easily accessible, using small moments to delve into greater truths. And yet, all these years later, there are still many people who believe that poetry must be complex and nigh incomprehensible to be worthwhile.

Now, I'm not saying a poem should just be a diary entry broken into lines (although there's space for that, too), but I much prefer poems that may read easily and yet, upon a second or third reading, the reader discovers deeper layers of meaning.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. :)