She took me gently by the arm, pulled me to one side, and spoke very softly: "Try to stay off the abstract nouns!" she cautioned - the latest in my long line of addictive disorders.


Abstract nouns



God and truth and death and sex:
It's all so simple and yet complex
I aim for smiles but keep getting frowns
So I'm trying to give up the damned abstract nouns

Abstraction (the word) is itself quite abstract.
Is my head up my gastro-intes-tin-al tract?
Is it time that I made a reality pact,
And turn all my rhymes into matters of fact?

God and truth and sex and death:
You tell me I'm only wasting my breath
And my peer's condemnation is doing the rounds
So I'm going cold turkey on damned abstract nouns

Since I've been having my meaning unpacked
I'm starting to see what my poems have lacked
Like a grand inquisition is having me racked,
And I'm forced to denounce all the nouns that abstract.

Truth and sex and death and god:
I try to be normal – perhaps I'm just odd;
Want to fly the trapeze but I'm put with the clowns.
So I try to cut down on the damned abstract nouns.

But the more I resist them, the more they close in
No chance of salvation from this poet's sin
The more that's encompassed by any damned word
The more that my clichés are mocked as absurd

Sex and god and death and truth:
I expect you'll be wanting a little more proof.
How it is, as they say, is not quite how it's stacked,
And amongst all my blessings not one of them's tact.

So you must forgive me for my subject's scope:
My ratings have fallen beyond any hope
And for failing to see how the mundane astounds
I'm condemned forever to damned abstract nouns.



Poetry by Andrew Bindon
Read 709 times
Written on 2009-12-01 at 13:45

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Phyllis J. Rhodes
So what are we going to do? abstract nouns are taboo.
duty and honor, joy and pride, good friends all, must take a ride
Until that teacher can replace them with other words
I suggest she feed her senses with with a pile of tur...tles!
LOVE THIS!
2009-12-03


Andrew Bindon
@KJC "So how does one give up the addiction of abstract nouns?"

My best guess is that the easiest way to give up any addiction is to allow myself to be taken over by some other addiction or set of addictions.

From a particular point of view, we could think of all our behaviours as addictions; they fight it out with each other for control over our time. In order to be freed from an undesired addiction, the easiest solution is to allow ourself to be overtaken other addictions.
2009-12-01



Abstract nouns
are addictive of course
that is why she gently
tried to pull you off your
high horse of adstract nouns,
the fact that she spoke
softly is a blessing in
disguise but then we
are to beware when
different ones speak
well of us so how does
one give up the addiction
of abstract nouns?
2009-12-01


NicholasG
There's worse curses making the rounds
Than those awful abstract nouns
I'd like to pull out by the roots
Those who deal in absolutes.

I enjoyed this. Thanks, Nick
2009-12-01