12-23-2014, 07:13 PM
No John, or David, Pete or Mat will bring Mohammed down.
A call, a cry, a father’s name; a million heads turn round.
Though saints infest the west the east protects its sneaking thief;
steals thinking sons from thoughtful life,
named in good faith to limit strife...
all synonyms for grief.
I don't get the "named in good faith to limit strife..." part. Lines 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 doesn't indicates anything that are in conjunction to limiting strife, in fact - they encourages the conflict despite it being a futile one (line 3 mark a black and white nature of the situation, from the perspective of the narrator). Needless to say, line 5 feels at odd with the rest of the stanza.
A century, millennium; time all but bombed by history.
The curse of being son of man eats hearts and souls; a mystery
made secret by your place of birth, unsure of what life means,
the young treat death as blessed demise
to trade for early paradise;
and everlasting dreams.
The term "son of man" is out of place to be used in a culture that refer themselves as slaves of God. Furthermore, only one person in New Testament history that used the term "son of man" and the term is understood as reference to His Godly nature (though some dispute this as to the contrary a human nature), still the whole context of this stanza is not about Christian civilization but an Islamic one - the apathy and move towards fundamentalism due to oppression and poverty - is what I understood from this stanza.
Love if you can for gods are strange, and do not love you back.
Why do we mortals fight their fights, in holy lands, in black Iraq,
in sunlit places, made for peace? They kill us with commands
to maim, to glorify "our" lord.
Oh how we play, on things absurd,
right into hell’s hands.
What a strange conclusion, it seems neutral and blamed both gods even though in the first stanza it was stated:
Though saints infest the west the east protects its sneaking thief;
I sense an inconsistency in the narrator view of the conflict.
A call, a cry, a father’s name; a million heads turn round.
Though saints infest the west the east protects its sneaking thief;
steals thinking sons from thoughtful life,
named in good faith to limit strife...
all synonyms for grief.
I don't get the "named in good faith to limit strife..." part. Lines 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 doesn't indicates anything that are in conjunction to limiting strife, in fact - they encourages the conflict despite it being a futile one (line 3 mark a black and white nature of the situation, from the perspective of the narrator). Needless to say, line 5 feels at odd with the rest of the stanza.
A century, millennium; time all but bombed by history.
The curse of being son of man eats hearts and souls; a mystery
made secret by your place of birth, unsure of what life means,
the young treat death as blessed demise
to trade for early paradise;
and everlasting dreams.
The term "son of man" is out of place to be used in a culture that refer themselves as slaves of God. Furthermore, only one person in New Testament history that used the term "son of man" and the term is understood as reference to His Godly nature (though some dispute this as to the contrary a human nature), still the whole context of this stanza is not about Christian civilization but an Islamic one - the apathy and move towards fundamentalism due to oppression and poverty - is what I understood from this stanza.
Love if you can for gods are strange, and do not love you back.
Why do we mortals fight their fights, in holy lands, in black Iraq,
in sunlit places, made for peace? They kill us with commands
to maim, to glorify "our" lord.
Oh how we play, on things absurd,
right into hell’s hands.
What a strange conclusion, it seems neutral and blamed both gods even though in the first stanza it was stated:
Though saints infest the west the east protects its sneaking thief;
I sense an inconsistency in the narrator view of the conflict.