09-13-2013, 12:21 AM
The zombies have awoken;
the harlequins don their caps.
They believe their foolish rites
will immortalize this night,
It's your poem, your voice, or your narrator's voice and perspective. I still don't think they care for immortalizing that night or most any night. Maybe sometimes. But that would just be part of their pettiness; maybe a Baptist would have that perspective about them though, and ridicule that pettiness if he was willing to give them that much thought, and most likely he wouldn't. So fine.
but the Gods will turn their backs
on this eve’s garish façade
and disavow these dark sheep
who vandalize the twilight.
Which Gods? The rhetorical, straw gods of some abstract paganism? Well, that's most likely the case anyway. The dark sheep would be appropriate rhetoric from a Baptist perspective. The self-righteous attitude that can't help but use his religious terminology even in describing what seems so far from his beliefs. An earlier version of this claims that God turns His back on these revellers as He does His own; which makes me think you're not totally in sync with the Baptist narrator, and that he's just an invention that came out of the multiple revisions. That, and the fact that you've admitted that several times. But I guess I should only critique one version at a time, though they all are relevant to your poem.
After feasting like gluttons
in anticipation of Lent,
they pilgrimage to nowhere
on a muddled anguine route
Feasting like gluttons is a common enough expression, the way it's worded, its meaning. Though they are gluttons. Maybe not all the time, so you're comparing them to constant gluttons. That's not a big deal. The word "After" and similar stage directions, I think, add a lot to the stiffness I talked about before. Then again, I've been paying little attention to whatever form this poem might be working with. Still, the words like "After" weaken it.
and lurch The Big-Uneasy
in ill-defined conga lines,
with no lucid purpose to
their neo-pagan orgy.
Lucid somehow comes through, but seems buried under so many negatives. Lucidity is the enemy, so the posh Baptist is correct, but merely correct.
They’ll dance the evening lifeless,
while shaking canes and rattles,
snaking along warm asphalt,
freeing spirits from bottles.
Purblind in amber beer light,
they seek some neon beacon,
stumbling into false temples
in which faith could never thrive.
Like many religious folk, this Baptist does his religion great injustice. Admitting that such a paltry neon advertised building could defeat faith. But the voice you've taken up works better for the tone of this. Creating the mouthpiece to do the dirty work seems to be the effort now.
the harlequins don their caps.
They believe their foolish rites
will immortalize this night,
It's your poem, your voice, or your narrator's voice and perspective. I still don't think they care for immortalizing that night or most any night. Maybe sometimes. But that would just be part of their pettiness; maybe a Baptist would have that perspective about them though, and ridicule that pettiness if he was willing to give them that much thought, and most likely he wouldn't. So fine.
but the Gods will turn their backs
on this eve’s garish façade
and disavow these dark sheep
who vandalize the twilight.
Which Gods? The rhetorical, straw gods of some abstract paganism? Well, that's most likely the case anyway. The dark sheep would be appropriate rhetoric from a Baptist perspective. The self-righteous attitude that can't help but use his religious terminology even in describing what seems so far from his beliefs. An earlier version of this claims that God turns His back on these revellers as He does His own; which makes me think you're not totally in sync with the Baptist narrator, and that he's just an invention that came out of the multiple revisions. That, and the fact that you've admitted that several times. But I guess I should only critique one version at a time, though they all are relevant to your poem.
After feasting like gluttons
in anticipation of Lent,
they pilgrimage to nowhere
on a muddled anguine route
Feasting like gluttons is a common enough expression, the way it's worded, its meaning. Though they are gluttons. Maybe not all the time, so you're comparing them to constant gluttons. That's not a big deal. The word "After" and similar stage directions, I think, add a lot to the stiffness I talked about before. Then again, I've been paying little attention to whatever form this poem might be working with. Still, the words like "After" weaken it.
and lurch The Big-Uneasy
in ill-defined conga lines,
with no lucid purpose to
their neo-pagan orgy.
Lucid somehow comes through, but seems buried under so many negatives. Lucidity is the enemy, so the posh Baptist is correct, but merely correct.
They’ll dance the evening lifeless,
while shaking canes and rattles,
snaking along warm asphalt,
freeing spirits from bottles.
Purblind in amber beer light,
they seek some neon beacon,
stumbling into false temples
in which faith could never thrive.
Like many religious folk, this Baptist does his religion great injustice. Admitting that such a paltry neon advertised building could defeat faith. But the voice you've taken up works better for the tone of this. Creating the mouthpiece to do the dirty work seems to be the effort now.