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# Mothers’ Nightmare
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/kate-kretz-mothers-nightmare/
- Published: 2018-02-17T16:00:27.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:10:53.000Z
- Description: Another walking-anger-management-issue finds a people-killing machine.
- Author: Kate Kretz
- Tags: Art, Drawing, Weekend, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-18 14:37 (2018)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/02/cri_de_coeur_final.jpg)

Kate Kretz, “Cri de Cœur (Heart Cry)” (2018, after a detail of “Scène du Déluge,” 1827, by Joseph-Désiré Court), graphite on paper, 14 x 11 inches (courtesy of the artist)

Here  
the bitter dusty old men  
dream  
of the battle they shoulda won at Gettysburg  
or finally  
showing Daddy they could be a man  
(in the street at High Noon)

Here  
the young ones (who can’t get laid)  
are  
momentarily  
Duke Nukem from Bulletstorm Full Clip  
(in overkill mode, for extra points)  
Finally scoring.

Here  
another walking-anger-management-issue  
finds a people-killing machine  
(no problem)  
It fires  
fast and hard  
a jolt  
to finally feel something  
Make their mark.

Here  
mothers  
must forever wade in the nightmares that  
their children  
might be the next collateral damage  
in  
yet another lost man’s  
fantasy  
of self-actualization