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neonsquiggle — chaos theory
Published: 2015-01-06 17:06:55 +0000 UTC; Views: 889; Favourites: 44; Downloads: 0
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Description
I soaked your butterflies in vodkaand buried them alive.
I planted yellow daisies in the 20-proof dirt
and waited for the sunshine
to make us all
golden.
Sometimes when the winds are angry where you are,
I think of your butterflies and wonder
if we're all still fighting to get out.
If they ever named a hurricane after me
I would call you up just to say
I told you so.
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Comments: 21
I love this!! There are so many different ways to interpret this. It's not vague, it's ambiguous; and in this context ambiguous is powerful.
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Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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You have so much strength of emotion in your words. Your usage and flow really underscore all the feelings of heartbreak and moving on. Your last stanza in particular is just really powerful to me. Very evocative work here. Well done.
Also, haters gonna hate, if I may use the modern vernacular for just a moment. Don't sweat it. Your POEM is incredible.
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This is a really late reply, but I'd like to thank you so much for your kind words, both in appreciation for the poem and the support with regards to other comments. You are really too lovely, thank you so very, very much.
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I planted yellow daisies in the 20-proof dirt
and waited for the sunshine
to make us all
golden.
I enjoyed this
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Chaos theory suggests that a small change in initial conditions in chaotic systems, can lead to a vast change elsewhere in the system. So if you adjust your verses to fit a non-cliched vocabulary, I think your poetry might just get better. Free verse allows you to openly put forward a context in which your words express a lot more than inside the realm of regular, academic verse construct. So use this opportunity wisely.
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Thank you so much!
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Your sentences strike like lightning! You write well.
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That's so lovely to hear. Thank you!
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I'm rather curious as to what you're getting at.
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I wanted to convey the beginnings of a letting-go, and the things that arise from it. Was the story told well enough, or was it too vague?
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The whole thing seems to be a part of a greater vogue for too much vagueness and too little sense and actual poetry; if I'm honest, I can't make more of it than a string of bizarre, disjointed images that you could make mean anything if you were so inclined, but which bear only a strained and marginal relationship to each-other.
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Hm. Each stanza is meant to portray some stage of letting go.
For example, burying butterflies would obviously mean trying to bury the feelings you had for someone. Vodka in this case is what you used to try and bury those feelings. Planting flowers over a grave usually signifies trying to make the best of a bad situation. Hurricanes, when associated with butterflies, usually bring to mind the chaos theory, hence the title. Basically the last two stanzas are meant to portray how difficult it is to actually let go of something - the butterflies are trying to get out, therefore the feelings are trying to get out, etc. I don't know why these things would be considered too vague unless you took them literally? Pretty sure the gravity of the poem is now somewhat offset by this explanation, but there it is.
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I cannot see how burying butterflies would 'obviously' mean that; I suppose it COULD mean that, but 'your butterflies' could mean various things: butterflies in one's stomach, butterflies representing innocence or happiness, the butterfly, frequent in Japanese media, which symbolises death and rebirth. The word 'soaking' also throws that off as well, since one would typically drown, rather than soak, one's memories; soaking them makes it sound as if they are about to be ignited (alcohol is a highly inflammable substance, if memory serves), or possibly preservation, and burying them for the future, though they are, of course, still alive, so the vodka clearly did not work.
Planting flowers in dirt watered with vodka probably would not result in much growing (if I had to guess, I am not a botanist, mind), but perhaps that is what you were getting at; the rest of the stanza remains unexplained, especially the apparently unnecessary emphasis on 'golden'. Perhaps I can see some signs of futility, but overall, it feels like I might be grasping at straws. That it is necessary for you to explain it at all for me to make much meaning of it is something of another red flag: if it's so abstracted that only you can make sense of it, it might be well and good for you, but I don't really see people saying much other than that they like it without giving any concrete reason; some give equally-abstract reasonings, but perhaps they, and you, like it better that way?
The third stanza seems to have 'we're' where I might expect 'they're', but fighting seems to be a new thing.
The hurricane, being so divided from the butterflies, does not make me think of chaos theory, but does help to explain the title. It feels more like the whole drops off into a void. For me, there was never gravity, only head-scratching and hesitation to apply the word 'poem', which, as both form and substance are lacking, I cannot say I think this has merited. The ideas overall are fairly trite, and lacklustre, and little to no real mastery of language that I can discern.
Perhaps something I read in one of Lewis's letters might be of help to you — it is advisable that one spend a number of years writing poetry in the strictest of forms before even considering breaking from them. While I think it a little extreme, it may well cure some of the lacklustreness of what today passes for 'poetry'.
Addendum:
This is what I would have done with that idea and similar images:
sta.sh/013vv6k0i9we
I neither mean to say that you ought to have produced this, nor that you should strive to, but rather that you could have done much better, and also, as far as this is evidence, acquire a fuller mastery over the forms of poetry before you attempt to violate them. I do not actually frequently use the form here myself, but it was what came to mind as fitting.
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It's so gorgeous. I love all the imagery and the raw power in this!
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Thank you kindly! Your words are much appreciated.
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