Abecedar baffles & confounds didn't even figure Google® helpful ~ I just kinda looked myself ~ not open-minded people questioning rational stuff ~ that until value wilts 2 year zero.
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NOTES:
Theodore Roethke likened poetry-forms to sieves, " . . . catching certain materials". Such an attractive sentiment about such an important human activity.
An artist friend once created an art-exhibit wherein the recipients were photographed and asked to write their opinion about his sign which read: "Art is a game with no rules", with the understanding that these too would be framed and added to the exhibit.
Robert Warlov likens 'Poetry-forms' to someone else's "Rules".
~
Descendent we are
forefather’d as we are
(not all obviously),
from the Germanic tribes.
Around the year zero
we emerged out of those dark primordial
winter forests,
fully formed and tribal.
Not to get too historical, however.
The fun part is
we get to choose which one of these
we want to be,
choose imaginary friends and foes
so let’s see -
Saxons
Angles
Jutes
Friesians
Franks
Hermione’s
Churusi
Suebi
Marcomanni
Alemanni
Lombards
Goths
Vandals
Burgundians
Herull
Finns
and Skandza.
Trouble is, all too often
it Just sucks to be German.
The Armenians are’t wanted,
Christians in Muslim land,
we have to make Turkey for Turks,
they’re not part of the plan.
The kulaks are class enemies,
hoarding all the best land,
it’s fine to starve the productive,
they’re not part of the plan.
The Jews have undermined us all,
this is an Aryan land,
gas them to build a brand new Reich,
they’re not part of the plan.
We must make a Great Leap Forward,
make metal, not till land,
peasants may die, but we have more,
they’re not part of the plan.
Let’s take it back to Year Zero,
and reshape this whole land,
send tainted to the Killing Fields,
they’re not part of the plan.
The unborn just get in the way,
don’t need them in this land,
what’s life compared to convenience?
They’re not part of the plan.
These -istaphobic right-wingers
are blights upon our land,
let’s kill the lie that is freedom,
they’re not part of the—
Wait—hey, who gave them all guns? Oh shi—
Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge movement, the leader Pol Pot,
Killed twenty-five percent of the population, a fact most people forgot.
To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss,
That was the ideology of the evil boss.
Buddhist monks were killed and religion was banned,
No one was safe with this beast in command.
Children placed in labour camps, civil rights were abolished,
Schools and hospitals shut down, homes were demolished.
People getting shot for wearing glasses, laughing and even crying,
And if you spoke a foreign language you were definitely dying.
Slave labourers dying from overwork, malnutrition and executions,
While the U.K. gave the Khmer Rouge plenty of contributions.
Minority groups were targeted, Thai, Muslims, Christians and Vietnamese,
But they explicitly targeted the ethnic Chinese.
Millions of pounds from the U.K., millions of dollars from the states,
All working together in terror, they were the best of mates.
What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot completed,
And none of them ever showed remorse for all the people they mistreated.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.