Religiosity? I think you don’t get what I am working at. But that’s alright.
Poetry / THE PLACE OF THE SKULL
“What is the colour
when black is burnt?”
So is the soul
towards Godhead turned.
To his own Will,
there’s a God-sent end.
No longer does he
a thin life spend.
“I”, great wanderer,
brought to the Test,
transfixed on the Cross,
transfigured, “I” rest.
In stillness, now,
the dark Universe-wheel turns
the fat Self empties,
Blood the Spirit un-binds.
Little Child, hearing such things,
why stand eyeless, mystified?
Enough that the pure into Purity
by suffering is purified!
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icedsapphire reviewed Version 2 -
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I was grooving along with this piece until the line “the dark Universe-wheel turns”. It halted me. I think the rhythm of the line is the stopping force. Perhaps find a bit tighter way to say it? I don’t know. Just pointing out that the line didn’t jive well with me, and I feel it doesn’t do the rest of the poem justice.
The main reason I don’t usually review poetry, is it has a very direct meaning for the author. Generally it is the most personal style of writing. But yet poems can sometimes be interpreted in so many ways. Just think of the poetry and prose of shakespeare: we can assume all we like what we think he meant, but we can never truly know.
Your poem, to me, seems to have some strong religious (or spiritual, if you will) undertones. But again that line about the Universe wheel, it seems out of place since it seems to follow its own “religion”
Best of luck. I have nothing else I can say.
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neoprose reviewed Version 2 -
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Not really a fan of such overbearing religiosity, nor or the rhyme scheme. That put it off to a bad start [IMO]. But, since there wasn’t any really outstanding imagery to cloak the pretension, it read as more droning then interesting.
On the short: cut the capitalization of words that aren’t proper nouns- it comes across as pretentious. And break free of the over used rhyme scheme.
That is all.
brokenhand reviewed Version 2 -
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Am I reading this wrong, or are you speaking as Jesus? If so, I would say don’t, unless your saying something benign like brush your teeth or something.
I think it is tiresome when you have to twist a sentence into something that it shouldn’t be in order to fit a rhyme scheme (eg – “No longer does he / a thin life spend.”) You should either pick something else to write, or ditch your rhyme scheme. I would suggest ditching the rhyme scheme here, because there is nothing unique or original in the way you are rhyming and it doesn’t particularly add to your poem. In fact, the subject matter here doesn’t really seem to agree with rhyme, in my opinion.
Good Luck with revision
Howard_Bushart reviewed Version 2 -
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Very thoughtful work. Not all this work has to yield is accessible on the first read through and that’s a good thing. It also requires the reader to bring something to the reading as well—beliefs, background, critical thinking. This is also a good thing. It’s reminiscent of Emerson’s “Brahmin” and that, too, is a good thing. So lots of nice stuff here.
I am a bit confused by the captialization which does not appear to be random but also does not appear to be following a conventional pattern. For instance, in the second verse, “To his own Will,/there’s a God-sent end./No longer does he/a thin life spend.” The pronouns his and he are lower case, a clue I suppose to the human and not the deity? But it takes a second, and third read. If I’m wrong about this, then clarity can be increase by changing the line “To His own Will” or by using a lower case “w” on will.
Also, the fourth verse is very nice but but does “stillness” refer to immobility or silence? The universe-wheel cannot be still (immobile) and turn at the same time. However, it certainly can turn silently. I’m also not sure this a problem. Ambiguity does not bother me a lot in poetry. If it works for you, it works for me.
Very nice imagery and I like the final quatrain a lot. The third line of that final verse is strained a bit and you might try compressing the syallables for instance, “know instead the pure into purity” or something along that line. This is nice.
avkoshy reviewed Version 2 -
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Maybe the capitals to be revisited, some taken out and new ones put in, and one or two commas taken out and new ones put in, but i can’t think of anything more and these are minor details, now it reads well, is a tight piece, good poetry, flows, and has a nice stanzaic pattern to it that is unvarying but adds to the effect, plus the Blakean “innocence” poems ending is really quite powerful :)
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