Absurdism

Okay, when putting together the packet for Abusurdist Poetry, I had a hard time. It is really hard to define Absurdism....it is just absurd. Pretty much, the poems have no form. They usually take things that sound absurd, and use them in a manner to make them make sense. Does that make sense? Usually, you stare at an absurd poem and are cluesless as to what it is talking about, initially. But if you really look into it, and look past all of the absurdities, then you can find some really beautiful meaning. Even though most Absurd poems highlight the meaningless of a certain subject, or seem just meaningless, Absurd poems are some of my favorite.
I wanted to put so many in the packet, but I didn't want to blow your brains. So here is another poem to think about, written by another student.

Postscript to an Apocalypse



If mouths were more
like windows than doorways
it'd be easier to see inside
each other—the former needing
only occasional cleaning
and the latter opening often, but hardly
ever remaining so, except with the onset
of sleep or something like it,
though inward gazing is frowned
upon in these situations.
If eyes were just the opposite,
we could trade out our sight like old cars.
Not a strange concept, the aging
of personal experience. Say we all get together
some time, our eyes beaming our brains
back and forth and our hearts confined
to our throats for all the good that they do.
Say we sit down in the biggest,
dumbest circle ever thought out
in the entire history of kumbaya,
and we cobble God out of collective
nonsense—the trees humming in the dark
like the noise spidering through your head
that's most likely cancer and the grass
pricking your fingers despite your contrary opinions,
and He knows it all and He sits down with each of us
at the same time and we ask Him about ourselves,
the last people we get to know truth be told,
and He tells us everything about everything,
from the weight of a stick of butter on Mars
to the reason behind every pop song ever written,
the real distance ingrained within an arm's reach away.

-Tim Payne