Faustian

[Bombadil]

I.

The split sided saviour’s corpse
has been placed in the pit. Rocked in.

Apostles have hidden their rooster-shit faces
three times more.

It’s a lonely feeling when your purpose
dies at its crowning—king of skulls.

Saturday. The seder meal rots slowly.
Flies have no respect for the dead son of God.

God, it seems, doesn’t give a fuck
at least one day a year.

Faust chose his days well.

II.

I begged to die Friday,
to be spared the ignominy of living,
the disrepute of suicide.

God doesn’t answer prayers.

III.

Drawing circles with stars at their centers,
scars running with wax

while

hands shake beneath moth-eaten gloves.

I don’t know the words but

I am ready to test the theory.

Maybe Saturday is the day for answers after all.

[David]

Phew, the first section is thick (and rich) with allusions and images. I like that.

"Rocked in" is great, as it suggests both Mary rocking him to (eternal) (???) sleep and the bloody big stone they tried to keep him in with.

Cheap pedantic shot - "your purpose"

God, it seems, doesn’t give a fuck
at least one day a year.

I couldn't follow the thought process here, nor can I quite see where Faust comes into it. No doubt there'll be a short pithy answer to that.

The second and third sections, being - apparently - much more personal, left me behind as they accelerated away from me. I like the way they move, but I don't know where they're going.

I think you're operating at a high level of ambition and achievement, Keith. Seriously good stuff.

Cheers

David

[brianedwards]

Well, I agree with David regarding the ambition. . . reads very much like a first draft to me. I trust you will be wise enough to let it sit and give the problems time to speak to you.

B.

~

[Danté]

I enjoyed the pact with the devil or suchlike aspect of the poem and to be honest I think it works and reads well, aside from the slightly puzzling "you're" in line five.
"hands shake beneath moth-eaten gloves." Seemed a little odd and rendered an image of either two pairs of hands, the gloved ones over another pair which are shaking or the gloves laying on top of the hands which is a bit awkward. I enjoyed the allusion towards invoking a spiritual entity and overall found it a rewarding piece to read.

thank you

Danté

[Bombadil]

Oy. New slang from one of my students seems adequate for me here:

Fucktarded.

Jesus. And I used to be the spelling Nazi on the site.

I need not to post when drunk and sad.

[Sharra]

I really liked this – dark and interesting, and I thought all the short lines and spaces worked well.

The Faustian thing confused me at first, especially in S1, until I realised that the circles and stars are a pentagram, and maybe the moth eaten gloves are goat skin or something similar – S3 is some form of Satanism?
I wonder if you need to be even more subtle about it – the title is a bit of a shout that distracts from the poem for me, and I would be tempted to lose the Faust line in S, as again it felt distracting – the God line is enough I feel

I thought S2 was working really well.

S3 felt the weakest to me – I think the last 3 lines are ok, but the way you’re creating the satanic image feels a little clunky.
Sharra
xx

[pseud]

I need not to post when drunk and sad.

Whoa now, let's not be hasty. Imagine how frightening and boring this place (indeed, any place) would be with only sober, happy people.

I believe you might be right about this particular effort though - I think I understood parts I. and II., but III. left me totally dumbfounded.

Since when do you have students? I thought your job had something to do with fruit?

- Caleb

[Bombadil]

Hey Caleb! Good to see your residual self again.

I'm going to try to revise III this weekend. Thanks to Sharra as well.

I went back to school, bro. I'm slogging through me masters now, which means I can teach the freshman english classes. Fruit was too dull, I needed to flex my inner dictator.

Cheers,

Keith