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Thread: Perhaps the Odd Angel

  1. #1
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    Perhaps the Odd Angel

    All I own would not fill a crate, and my gut
    holds neither god nor demon
    since the boarding-up of my faith's poor shack.
    The demagnetization of the compass my father
    left behind as he sailed away on his warship
    has nixed my direction. All roads are forked;
    lead to air, water, and dirt dead ends.

    I cannot worship the trees or rocks or hills
    since I've witnessed them being wrecked
    and thieved by master hoarders and poets
    who speak of silent seas. The sea is never silent
    except to those who dwell inland from its smash
    and hiss. I'm weary of liars and the love piled
    on their images by household sages.

    If I could find a timer I would set it. Let its
    tick torment those who never want to leave
    this year or the next to someone else. The ding
    would smack of finality and smooth-faced tombstones
    stacked for the engraver's eye and hand. The spark
    behind his spectacles, kept bright by his muse,
    would blind the naive angel who would try to intervene.
    "People who believe a lot of crap are better off." Charles Bukowski

  2. #2
    King of Dreams MorpheusSandman's Avatar
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    I'm quite mystified by this one! It's so mysterious and intriguing I'm a bit bereft of my usual critical lexicon. I guess I could simply say that I quite like it but I don't feel as if I have a grip on its theme.
    "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." --Carl Gustav Jung

    "To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." --Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists

    "I'm on my way, from misery to happiness today. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh" --The Proclaimers

  3. #3
    Not politically correct Pendragon's Avatar
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    That first stanza really hits home, I've questioned my own Faith at times, wondering about the whens, the wheres, and the whys...
    Some of us laugh
    Some of us cry
    Some of us smoke
    Some of us lie
    But it's all just the way
    that we cope with our lives...

  4. #4
    Registered User cogs's Avatar
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    i finally got it, i think. the last stanza was tough. this must have taken much thinking. with writing in sentences, you have 'the's' and 'i's'. a suggestion is to fit the other words into a whole that supports itself, as in meter, rhyme, etc. but the framework is definitely there. i do like the flow, and especially, "smooth-faced tombstones stacked for the engraver's eye and hand." (i continued mentally with the stone ten commandments, and how angry paul broke them, when he witnessed idolatry)

  5. #5
    Haribol Acharya blazeofglory's Avatar
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    Bedecked with mystical elements, and of course a little indecipherable at first as some ideas are implicit in the poem and that are exactly what are essential in the making of a good poem

    “Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””

    “If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

  6. #6
    Something's gotta give PrinceMyshkin's Avatar
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    Overall, the ultimate expression of nihilist despair, but these lines:

    Quote Originally Posted by DanBierce View Post
    The sea is never silent
    except to those who dwell inland from its smash
    and hiss.
    hit home with especial beauty and force.

  7. #7
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    Thanks, guys. Glad the poem works well for you for the most part. I shy away from explaining my poems. If readers don't 'get' them it's my duty to look at ways to make the poem read clearer.

    "A poem that can be improved by its author's explanations never should have been published in the first place." Archibald MacLeish
    "People who believe a lot of crap are better off." Charles Bukowski

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