Under the Cross

[LoveMinusZero]

A conscious effort
by the constrained
creates nothing.

Devoid of inspiration,
enraged egotists find
fault in selfless pursuit of
glory.

Hampered by the
infancy of others,
jettisoned memories of
ketamine disassociation allow
lies to fester.

Myopic interludes of
nihilistic pleasure
only serve to
profundicate the
questionably sane
revolver in my hands
sublime speech on world peace.

There is no sense left
under the cross.
Violins are broken,
weapons formed while
xylophone keys shatter
Yale’s prestige as king of the
zoo.

[Arian]

I quite like the flow and sounds of this, but I'm afraid that's where my appreciation ends. Overall, it has the feel of a poet trying to prove he's a poet. Beyond being an anti-radicalist outpouring, I'm afraid it said very little to me. Sequences such as:

Myopic interludes of
nihilistic pleasure
only serve to
profundicate the
questionably sane
revolver in my hands
sublime speech on world peace.


Sound like it's been produced by one of those online versifiers, that mix'n'match random words to a grammatical template.

Sorry to be negative.
Cheers
peter

[David2]

Aha! A pun! And a man on a mission. Not sure what else it achieves, beyond ticking off the full 26.

Did It really have to be xylophone, though? Are there no better x-words?

I rather like

Yale’s prestige as king of the
zoo.

Cheers

David

[Macavity]

I like notion of a 'sane revolver', and also a 'questionably sane revolver'.

cheers

mac

[Arian]

Not sure what else it achieves, beyond ticking off the full 26.

Ahh. Missed that completely. But even though I now get the alphabet thing, which is a bit of fun, I agree with David. It seems to have no other point.

Cheers
peter

[figure eight]

An interesting poem. The alphabet acrostic is an achievement but I wonder if its restrictions have had to much impact on the poem as you yourself seem to say in the first three lines.

I also wondered whether the following stanza was an attempt to preempt the comments that have appeared, though their is a touch of arrogance about the 'selfless pursuit of glory' line. There is a danger in this stanza of offending the reader by questioning their ability and, therefore, it could benefit from a slight re-wording.

There are some really good lines though, I also liked the questionably same revolver idea and the imagery of shattering xylophone keys. I'm impressed you made it to 'z', the end of the alphabet would've had me stumped.

I'm always impressed when someone can word within rules and restrictions like these you have imposed on yourself, I struggle even without them.

[Tim Love]

I've tried this kind of thing, both in poetry and prose. Can't say I've been very successful. One always hopes that the constraint will force out a phrase that might otherwise never have appeared - maybe "Yale’s prestige as king of the zoo" is such a phrase. I think pre-empting crit like the first stanza does is risky though. I don't get the title.

[figure eight]

I liked the title, I assumed it was a nod to the expression 'we all have a cross to bear' or in this case an acrostic to bear?