Ma! There are Aliens in the Backyard!
On "meanwhile... back in dreamland" by Nico Lund
art by Nico Lund
Last week’s poem, “meanwhile… back in dreamland,” is right here.
As we close out the first month of The Burning Palace, I just want to say thanks to everyone for hanging out. To the poets… Pom Pom Shin, Wyatt Daze, Sam Pink, and this weeks poet Nico Lund… thanks for sharing your inspiring-as-fuck work with us. And to you, the reader. Thanks for joining us. I hope to introduce you to a bunch of artists you’ve never heard of before whose stuff will blow you away. I know I personally have already been blown away by the January stuff, and I look forward to a saucy n romantic February.
This weeks poem was a really special one for me because it reminded me of Health Class where they made us watch a birth. Do they still do that? I remember this soup of grey liquid, and thinking, we are such aliens.
Meanwhile…
There’s a fun little interplay in this poem, where the text says “Meanwhile…. back in dreamland,” while the pictures show an incredibly realistic scene of ordinary wonder. If this sequence of images is fantasy, it is fantasy about something wildly non-fantastical… (if you didn't click the link, the character watches a duck pop an egg out). I have some cousins who live in Pennsylvania, and this was all they did, run around the huge forest in their backyard watching nature be.
In a way, I can’t even imagine this scene as fake if I try. It’s just that real.
So the tension generated in the poem is between dreamland, as we might imagine it, and ordinary fantasy. And somehow…
Things weren’t any less strange!
The charm that got me hooked on the poem was how it was this perfect depiction of how strange it all really is! Earth is weird as hell. For one, the egg that makes life… not so different than the ones we eat every day… they look like dull pearls. I once saw a spaceship that looked kind of like that egg.
The duck looks right at her! Turns around to show its ass, and performs the miracle of life. Inside the egg, she sees 8-12 little ducklings. This is where dreamland asserts itself in real life, weaving into the ordinary. The girl doesn’t know, and so she sees something more. Mystery is an essential element to
Our strange fractal world. I don’t wanna get all sentimental, but the curiosity and wonder of a child might make it all worth it. Kid, you end up addicted to drugs. Leave the kid alone, man!
BTW I’m looking to communize The Burning Palace
If you’re enjoying what I’m doing here and want to be a part of it, I’m looking for some artistically-inclined individuals who are interested in helping me make TBP even better.
I’m looking for
-video editors to make the poetry videos (I literally have never made videos before TBP and I want them to be even better
-a team of shitposters (I want to make more and funnier memes, ideally starting another page that cranks them out, stuff that is barely related to the poem of the week or poetry, or literally anything at all. weird shit. could be fun. hmu) basically the idea is that I want The Burning Palace page formal to be nice and chill and focused on the poems.
-I also especially need someone deranged to run the twitter. Think of it as an excuse to get the worst stuff off your chest.
Anyway, that’s what I’m looking for! I think TBP is a great opportunity for you to engage in a weekly creative project that will help you get your juices flowing. If you think so too, HMU!
-BP