God can see

[Chaotic Body]

(v3.0: Removed anything inferring guilt altogether. Originally I wanted to just convey the hypocrisy of religious morality in that it doesn't map itself to reality very well. So the idea was to take it to the extreme and show absurdity.)


God can see, God can see...
The more subtle acts unholy.
Those elements of all life
Not condemned particularly by
Holy bible; Connected nonetheless.


Having broken toy 'Made in China',
the child struggles to guage
A time to press Mommy, unscathed


As the plates are wiped, tucked away
And the TV roars stubborn backing
Of our nation's political pawns
Unquestionably of course; it's war
far away.


And the Mexican farmer's labour produce;
Somalian child's rice-
Casually fills our kitchen bin


The news-programme's scan settles
Mommy; "thank God it wasn't bad news!"
Leaves her open to attack-
Timmy takes opportunity to win
Another affordable G. I. Joe clone.



(v2.0)

God can see, God can see...
Every table-manner of every house?
Then: every of your tut or smack
Or feigned attention.


God can see, the casual throw of
The plate of food into the bin.


God can see your attention sway
Wholly, from Timmy's new toy
To cellphone worship of a celebrity.
Bottom reads: Made in China


God can see, your child's learned
Not to question parental authority


On the TV, stubborn support
Behind a powerful nation's pawns:
Justifying God's word in murder.
Where: lost in trembling fingers;
A Samaritan hugs a body.


And while the Banker and the Governing-Man
"Sit and watch getting a tan"-
Your voice is gone as the news-programme's scan
Settles you down: all's going to plan.
Godless: Being only what humanity can.





(end)




(v1.0 Original

God can see, God can see...
Every time you go for a pee.
Every which way you tut or plea,
Reconsider respecting me
Or feign attention appropriately.


God can see, the casual throw of
The plate of food into the bin.


God can see, your mind's expression
When you reject your child's challenges
Outright, as though on cue.


God can see your attention sway
Too fast, from Timmy's new toy
To cellphone worship of a celebrity.
Bottom reads: Made in China


God can see your defiant stance
Behind a powerful nation's pawns:
Justifying God's word in battle.
Where: lost in trembling fingers;
God's word lost hugging a body
God's word lost with the protection
Granted to the loved one, now taken.


Any can see, the pain a sufferer
Contains, when seeking religious aid;
No man of God, is he who pushes away
Society's guiding hand for his own;
Those who dress, in crowns and gold crosses
Making clean-robed claims opposing
"Science is based on truth."


And while the Banker and the Governing-Man
"Sit and watch getting a tan"-
Your voice is gone as the news-programme's scan
Settles you down: all's going to plan.
Godless: Being only what humanity can.





(end)

[Erthona]

Between the moralizing tone, and the often obvious if not forced rhymes, I found this difficult to get through. I have rarely found finger pointing an effective means of getting a point across, or of changing someones mind.

"your mind's expression" a mind does not have an expression, it has a thought. A thought in turn may be expressed through a word or a gesture.

Overall, this seems to reek of an oversimplified worldview, which assigns simplistic motives to complex situation, and then condemns the actions of those involved. I generally try and stay away from commenting on content, but in this case the validity of the poem rest on the accuracy of the speaker's evaluation of observed, or at least hypothesized events, and as this leads to sweeping generalizations (some of which are not even clear) it undermines whatever validity the poem might otherwise have. It is much like shooting fish in a barrel. Regardless of the institution, whether religion, government, et al, it is always easy to find corruption, or to point out as hypocritical those areas where humans fail to meet ideals they supposedly champion.

Dale

Dale

[billy]

God can see, God can see...
Every time you go for a pee. the opening feels very puerile considering it's not a nonsense poem
Every which way you tut or plea,
Reconsider respecting me
Or feign attention appropriately. on 1st take the stanza says more than it actually does, on 2nd read it says a lot less. basically all it says is;
god sees all
respect him
it's very weak


God can see, the casual throw of
The plate of food into the bin.


God can see, your mind's expression
When you reject your child's challenges
Outright, as though on cue.too much, all thats happening to the reader is an abundance of the same thing. up the imagery and give something new


God can see your attention sway
Too fast, from Timmy's new toy
To cellphone worship of a celebrity.
Bottom reads: Made in China this is probably the best line of the poem, it shouldn't be


God can see your defiant stance
Behind a powerful nation's pawns: i struggle to see how I got to this point, it sort of just appeared without any lead up or substance. it needs some kind of progression.
Justifying God's word in battle.
Where: lost in trembling fingers;
God's word lost hugging a body
God's word lost with the protection
Granted to the loved one, now taken. the rhetoric is overbearing, give some images to the reader. make it less of a pontification


Any can see, the pain a sufferer
Contains, when seeking religious aid;
No man of God, is he who pushes away
Society's guiding hand for his own;
Those who dress, in crowns and gold crosses
Making clean-robed claims opposing
"Science is based on truth."


And while the Banker and the Governing-Man
"Sit and watch getting a tan"-
Your voice is gone as the news-programme's scan
Settles you down: all's going to plan.
Godless: Being only what humanity can.

(end)

it was very hard to get through. i wanted to move on but i think it deserves feedback. it cries out for it. i'm presuming that's what you wish as you continue to post in serious crit

at the moment it's just a collection of common words that have been placed on a soap box. they need to be rearranged, changed and improved upon. the soap box needs to go and poetic devices need to be used instead. the piece needs a lot of work. possibly 90% of it says the same two things. i wish i could be more supportive of the piece but in truth it needs a lot of work and plenty of originality.

thanks for the read

[Chaotic Body]

Between the moralizing tone, and the often obvious if not forced rhymes, I found this difficult to get through. I have rarely found finger pointing an effective means of getting a point across, or of changing someones mind.

"your mind's expression" a mind does not have an expression, it has a thought. A thought in turn may be expressed through a word or a gesture.

Overall, this seems to reek of an oversimplified worldview, which assigns simplistic motives to complex situation, and then condemns the actions of those involved. I generally try and stay away from commenting on content, but in this case the validity of the poem rest on the accuracy of the speaker's evaluation of observed, or at least hypothesized events, and as this leads to sweeping generalizations (some of which are not even clear) it undermines whatever validity the poem might otherwise have. It is much like shooting fish in a barrel. Regardless of the institution, whether religion, government, et al, it is always easy to find corruption, or to point out as hypocritical those areas where humans fail to meet ideals they supposedly champion.

Dale

Dale

Thanks, I appreciate that you've weighed in here

Unfortunately even if grasping at straws, I think these are the measures we have to take sometimes to try to express anger/angst and to figure out what the hell happened. I think I'm assuming too much that the reader is as open minded and warm to inspiration as I am.. that's probably very true! But where else would such thinking start? That's part of what's behind the poem, I think..

There is definitely no inherent problem with observing individual facts but it's not easy to suddenly start thinking like that so thanks for pointing this out- I tried to connect by painting a more coherent picture/narrative by using a consistent setting in v2

Really though, on the whole morality thing, in reality it's that absurd and I already do understand it shouldn't run clear in poetry so well so easily. Attribution that this poem is relying on is spread everywhere.. but that's never meant we lose an ability to communicate an idea. We use stories for this twisting of reality's details all the time; it's one of their key strengths.

I really want to be very clear on some of these points, in particular to stay objective but I don't want the poem's form to get in the way of that also! Particularly because I'm not so good at this. But what do you think, now, in particular about the version 2's S4?

Behind a powerful nation's pawns: i struggle to see how I got to this point, it sort of just appeared without any lead up or substance. it needs some kind of progression.

Thanks for your detailed input again!! It's great

How would I add progression? I tried rearranging it a little; I hope the jump to "On the TV" is much easier

I'm really struggling with this but I think I can pull out stronger imagery (v2 is better with this?), I hope that will be enough. Otherwise there's going to be a lot of time before I can make this much better.

[tectak]

(v2.0)

[b]God can see, God can see...This is a weak opening but having read the piece right through it sets the pattern. Repeated phrases in the body of a piece can be an effective way of emphasising a thematic point...but just buttressing a phrase by immediate repeat is closer to some kind of chant or mantra....when god is involved it smells of religious zealotry which is not followed through. Furthermore, though an agnostic, it is my understanding that your god was never afflicted with blindness. This is not meant to demean the statement but more to point out that stating the obvious twice is no better than once.
Every table-manner of every house?frankly, there are more important things to consider when you are god. Surely you can think of something
Then: every of your tut or smack there is no imminent shortage of colons but you should only use them when needed. Read it and count 1 for a comma, 2 for a semi-colon,3 for a colon and 4 for a full stop.
Or feigned attention.this is pure Unwin.


God can see, the casual throw of
The plate of food into the bin.


God can see your attention sway
Wholly, from Timmy's new toy
To cellphone worship of a celebrity.
Bottom reads: Made in China none of this is saying anything new, either locally or in the globally poetic sense.Having said that, what the hell is it saying? You need to concentrate on structure and make your points so acidic that they etch themselves onto the page. I am not happy with bottoms reading China though in some puerile way you are making a contemporaneous point...very badly.


God can see, your child's learnedbad use of english. "Your child has learned...." is more emphatically rhythmical and much easier to say!
Not to question parental authority so could I....it doesn't require god. I am concerned, now, that this god thing is becoming over-emphasised.....at least within your own argument. The piece needs more miracles than mundanities


On the TV, stubborn support
Behind a powerful nation's pawns:
Justifying God's word in murder.
Where: lost in trembling fingers;are you practising using punctuation? This is a serious question. I have no idea how old you are so forgive me if you are very young. See previous comments. There is just a hint of a serious point being made in this stanza but the haphazard use of comma,colon,stop,colon, semi-colon then stop in one stanza is just profligate.
A Samaritan hugs a body.


And while the Banker and the Governing-Manpoor reflective attempt at a rhyme with the next line results in an infantile force. This is a non-stanza in terms of weight. The lead up to the close is just not worth the effort. The quotation marks only make the stanza disconnect from you, the writer; almost as though you had cut the words out of a newspaper sub-header......you didn't, did you?Drop the obsessions, both with a very minor god (as described) and the damnable desire to use up all the punctuation in the world. When punctuation is correctly used it is ALWAYS less rather than more.
"Sit and watch getting a tan"-
Your voice is gone as the news-programme's scan
Settles you down: all's going to plan.
Godless: Being only what humanity can.





(end)

Well, I am happy to say that I held myself back on this one. It has problems. This is serious critique. You need to rewrite this....completely. Before you begin a rewrite FORGET this version. Start with the concept and do not let it go. If you cannot get a firm grip on your points then either there ARE no points, or you are biting off more than you can chew. From this reader's point of view, this piece leaves me chewing a whole lot less than I could bite off.
Apologies for the lack of distinction in my comments. The bold/normal emphasies are not working.
Best,
Tectak

(v1.0 Original

God can see, God can see...
Every time you go for a pee.[/b]
Every which way you tut or plea,
Reconsider respecting me
Or feign attention appropriately.


God can see, the casual throw of
The plate of food into the bin.


God can see, your mind's expression
When you reject your child's challenges
Outright, as though on cue.


God can see your attention sway
Too fast, from Timmy's new toy
To cellphone worship of a celebrity.
Bottom reads: Made in China


God can see your defiant stance
Behind a powerful nation's pawns:
Justifying God's word in battle.
Where: lost in trembling fingers;
God's word lost hugging a body
God's word lost with the protection
Granted to the loved one, now taken.


Any can see, the pain a sufferer
Contains, when seeking religious aid;
No man of God, is he who pushes away
Society's guiding hand for his own;
Those who dress, in crowns and gold crosses
Making clean-robed claims opposing
"Science is based on truth."


And while the Banker and the Governing-Man
"Sit and watch getting a tan"-
Your voice is gone as the news-programme's scan
Settles you down: all's going to plan.
Godless: Being only what humanity can.





(end)

[Erthona]

I think that V2 is better than the first as it is more focused and less pedantic. I think it would further help to limit the focus to something like "feigned attention" as your thesis, and then give examples of this. It would also be nice to draw the distinction that God can see what we fail to see about ourselves a little more clearly, and why that is so. That is to say, what or where is out focus/attention when it should be wholly on something such as our children (certainly a common occurrence). After showing the effect of our lack of attention in the personal/specific area, that could then be expanded to show how that then manifest in the larger world. This allows you to build a case for your larger thesis by having it grounded in the events of everyday existence. However, I would try and be more generous or charitable if you will, when assigning blame, for no one really escapes guilt free. Such a stance is less polarizing and does not force the reader into the camp of either the righteous or the sinner.

In terms of form, I would first get clear what you are saying, then go back and see what can be done with that, although personally, I would stay away from rhyming couplets as that makes it difficult to take the piece seriously.

Dale

[billy]

i agree that V2 is an improvement, that said it doesn't seem to have purpose. apart from telling how god sees all. and how humanity is apathetic to his sight. as a thought, if a poem doesn't work on many levels for most who read it, it needs working on. that the poet thinks it great or good or well crafted in such cases is only illusion.

strip it down and rebuild it a verse at a time, get a verse right before moving on to the next. of course this is only advice about the poem and it can be used or not as you see fit.

it is good to see you edit. be brave, ignore your feelings about the poem (and yes, i know that's very hard to do) and workshop the bugger to death.

thanks for the edit.

[Leanne]

Good morning, or whatever it is in your part of the world... because I'm coming into this a bit late, I'm only going to look at V3 and I'm not reading any other comments beforehand, so forgive me if I say the same as others

God can see, God can see...
The more subtle acts unholy. -- for the sake of rhythm, you might consider "acts subtle and unholy" -- "more" doesn't really add anything.
Those elements of all life -- again, "all" is redundant, just saying "life" gives you a blanket term
Not condemned particularly by
Holy bible; Connected nonetheless. -- connected to what? To each other? To acts condemned?


Having broken toy 'Made in China', -- the grammar here is distracting, is there a reason not to say "his toy"?
the child struggles to guage -- gauge
A time to press Mommy, unscathed


As the plates are wiped, tucked away -- removing "as" would give you a stronger line, even "The plates are wiped and tucked away"
And the TV roars stubborn backing -- I'd remove "and"
Of our nation's political pawns -- "political pawns" is a cliche
Unquestionably of course; it's war -- a colon would serve better than a semi-colon -- also, "unquestioning" might work better than "unquestionably", and "of course" is your own judgment that doesn't really have a place here
far away.


And the Mexican farmer's labour produce; -- a comma instead, perhaps
Somalian child's rice-
Casually fills our kitchen bin -- "casually" doesn't need to be stated, the reader can infer this


The news-programme's scan settles
Mommy; "thank God it wasn't bad news!"
Leaves her open to attack-
Timmy takes opportunity to win -- leaving out an article here makes the grammar very awkward and forced -- you might just try "Timmy takes the chance to win", which also makes the alliteration less obtrusive
Another affordable G. I. Joe clone. -- would you consider "one more" instead of "another"?

I'm afraid I'm missing the irony here -- you start off with God is watching, then end up with no consequence except a spoiled child milking his mother out of another couple of dollars, so there's no real connection between the beginning and ending of the poem. If you want God to be the omniscient, chalking up incidents on naughty-v-nice list, then you need to make God present throughout the poem OR you need to add another stanza to bookend with the first to bring God back into the picture. I don't get any sense that the people being watched and judged are particularly religious or hypocritical, just regular working class being manipulated by the media -- so you could portray the family themselves as pawns in a game between God (who probably won't make his end move until quite a bit later on, after they're dead) and the evil media/politicians.

I think I see what you're trying to do here, you just need to make the poem more consistent with your ideas and focus on one single point rather than jumping around a bit too much as you do here.

Hope that helps