Who, what, is my mother ?

Favorite Answer

Yours is an intriguing modern haiku, using a blend of quirky humor and pathos to speak on (at least) three levels: literal, figurative, and ontological. Your haiku could, on one hand, be considered as the plaintive lament of an unwanted newborn whose mother must, perhaps against its wishes, foreshorten life, either due to straitened circumstances or the fear of social stigma; in that case, it is a poem of affecting pathos. It could also be a metaphorical piece, written from the perspective of an adolescent, who is experiencing the wider world free of parental reins, and yet feeling encumbered still by mother's displaced, but not altogether vanquished, control; it is then a work of bathos, and quirky humor and disgusted self-recognition. Finally, it is an ontological piece, and mother is Mother Nature, who equally controls the arrival and departure of all of her children. Each has his own allotment of breaths, and despite the acquired joy in breathing, in the experience of life, lies the recognition of the impermanence and finitude inherent in it. In that context, "Mom" rather than "Mother" is mocking, and deflates the austere grandeur of the one who controls life, blows grander possibilities and deeper ripples of meaning through my second interpretation. You have made much of these seventeen syllables, and for that you deserve our appreciation for your insight equally with your art of compression....Show more

Short, interesting but leaves us wanting some explanation or allusion to the reason behind the piece....Show more

hands clutching the past
strapped to a poisoning teat
time to move onward...Show more

I see it as simple as Mother Nature
negotiating our sentence and evicting our futures.
used the wrong word again, but I cannot find the right one right now.. so evict it is...Show more

despite your mother not letting you breathe, you should probably continue doing it anyways.....Show more