Contemporary

In class, we did an exercise that was prompted by our class reading of Percival Everett’s poem “Zulus” from his book of poems entitled re: f (gesture). “Zulus” is an abecedarian poem. In class Dr McCoy had us split into small groups and individually write the first few stanzas of an abecedarian poem. Our only requirement was to make allusions to things are relative to our lives, and/or contemporary issues, etc. After we were done writing the stanzas we shared them with the other members of our small group. The exercise turned out to be more confusing than we had originally thought, and we had all interpreted the instructions that Dr McCoy gave a little differently than we each other, it was certainly a lesson about miscommunication!

I thoroughly enjoyed the exercise, so I continued the poem I had started. Here is my first stab at an abecedarian poem, it is called “Contemporary”:

A.

a is for alright and the way alcohol makes you feel,

for association and the evils it reveals.

a is for strength, for the weak dead weight we lift up

B.

b is for burning, your liver giving up–giving in

C.

c is for concentration, schools, camps the injustice of rigour and discipline.

c is for the crusade of the underdog, the crusade of your broken name, your nation, your deity, Bromious and his frenzy

D.

d is for detrimental to your health, your skin, your appearance, your G.P.A

E.

e is for the effect of losing everything, never getting it back.

e is for Everett and everything I think he said…Language and its discontent.

F.

f is for finally, for food banks, and for the labours of the oppressed

G.

g is for gangs, guns, violence, your next doors neighbour’s son,

the way Goethe is such a confusing name to write once it is heard.

g is for trigger, for the virtue signal of your death rattle and the hypocrisy of all that you stand for

H.

h is for Hegel, for hope, for wisdom in the blinding dark

I.

i is for infant, for infinity, for you sweet nothing and your infallible ego.

J.

j is for cartridges, for nicotine, your thinly veiled discomfort,

your dry mouth, your hedonistic masochism, your wandering hands

K.

k is for unspeakable things, for lighters, for you, dream rider caught in the turmoil of this odyssey of the contemporary

L.

l is for lunatic, for hot summers, for dripping ice,

For safety, for the open air and all you mean to me,

For Lionheart, for trash bags, for stepping on air.

M.

m is for mars, for a million, for this puppet, for this plastic throne

N.

n is for nobody, for “is at home”.

n is for the things you said when we were alone, to the quite sheets, to the empty rooms,

to the blinding white oblivion waiting on the side of your drive home

O.

o is for abstain, for contempt of the empty, thoughtless mind

P.

p is for puppets, for masters, for kings.

p is for under the spell of everything I love and hold dear

Q.

q is silent and makes the world go ‘round

R.

r is for what I stop myself from doing when the wolves start to howl

S.

s is for new ways of killing one’s self,

For bombs in basements, in attics, for raids on your best friend in their shady ass apartment,

For snow too early, too late, too soft, too hard, too quiet, too deep

T.

t is for too much too soon, and the aching of your sleep-enamoured self,

t is for this sleep-deprived nation of sheep in suits, of cloaks and daggers,

For the majesty of this forest court, lost on the idle brain of this bloodlust driven king

U.

u is for the universe, for the laughable lack of hope in these surroundings

V.

v is for violent…

Give me hours, give me time, give me another life

Give me songs, poems, and photographs to colour all these grey cracked walls

Give me a valentine and all the half-truths that heart-shaped letters promise

W.

w is for shady politicians, for green valleys, for poppies all in a row.

w, is for wormholes, for a lack of hope,

for whatever hurts the most is truer than the quite simple fact

X.

x is for electromagnetic,

waves of high energy, deep breathing,

death and diet, for soft skin and sinning

Y.

y is for lemonade,

y is for why me, why you, on this dying sun, this cracked and broken planet

y is why now does everything get good when it is far too late to enjoy it

Z.

z is for apathy and the monitory value of your unexamined life, for milo, for open hearts, for the ecstasy of freedom in a gilded cage.

 

 

Everett, Percival. Zulus. Los Angeles, Red Hen Press, 2006.

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