Genetic Faith Edit 2 Leanne, ronsaik

[tectak]

Edit 1

Genetic Faith

Hot blood in hearts breeds faith in fury; --------- So 'hotheads believe in violence'. A banal statement if there ever was one. Also universal. 'Blood in heart breeds faith' is abstraction central.

war in over-spill, over-kill land. ----------- why is the land over-spill? if because it is from the spilt blood of the over-killed, then it's saying the same thing twice. On the other hand, "war in over-spill IN an over-kill land" would say more, but ruin the metre.
 
Young men are never children here; ---------I have a problem with this. It's saying that there's something wrong if young men aren't children, when you're actually trying to say that 15-year-olds are not children here. How about  'boys'? 
all games are real. Play seek-the-fire,
die-to-live, safe in Virgin’s wombs.  ----------- prosey. The earlier version was better.

Sisters, blank in burka, bedlam
wail, yet praise each death.
Sharia shades the shame of tear-fall; --------- Still don't get this. There  is no shame in martyrdom (as seen from their families' POV) with or without Sharia, which is Islamic law. Sharia talks about things like 'if you divorce your wife she and you must copulate with other partners before you can get together again' and the like. Your reference is  to radical Islam in general, which is bigger than Sharia.
once others cried, pride in the godhead,
masked  behind His smoke and flame.

Hear the crack and quake of triumph,
but know that only death brings peace.
Defeat is glory to the fallen; a Pyrrhic paradox.
In last recourse, like cancer cells, ---- this is where the poem actually starts. I was getting tired of waiting. But one sec, why 'last recourse'? nothing in the preceding lines suggest that the 'first and second recourse' of suicide bombing wasn't working. In fact, sisters were wailing but happy, and young men were happy too, to get all those virgins.

they move in blood of infidels.  

The strategy is wisely chosen... -- "Thou shalt not use ellipses" - said Tycho to Kepler
metastasise, fight from within;
Crude cytotoxins kill the patient
so no cure this, unless by time
genetic traits will slowly fade. --------- The section from 'In last recourse' to this is interesting. But all prose. It took me a while to realise that what you're saying is that a natural remission is the only cure. So there is no cure for Islamic fundamentalism unless it changes naturally and without discernible reason. Ok, but that doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the line about the 'dying / writhing' of blind faith at the end.

Now the boys have killed their quota,
mothers  have gathered cells of sons --- The metaphor is that these boys are cancer cells who have killed their host...and now the mothers have gathered up the cells' cells? No, this is stepping out of the metaphor at the outset, and going back to the first stanza about fire and virgins. So the boys are dead and the mothers have their memories, which are like cancer cells. How? Or are they the new propagandists on behalf of their dead sons, their ideas / ideals being the cancer cells? Clearly ludicrous. Mothers aren't known to be actors in the Jihadi army. You're making a big and bold statement, and can't just toss it in there as an idea.

that rain down from  prophet's hands. --- the prophet? cells raining down from his hands? did the cancer cells kill the prophet?
This is the end...the dying writhing.
Not of mankind, but of blind faith. --------- ---How?

Praise be.

tectak


Original

Hot blood in hearts breeds faith in fury;
war in an over-spill, over-kill land.
No young men live for childhood here,
but for the fire that burns them back
into the wombs of virgins.

Their sisters, dark beneath the cloth,
make wails yet praise their brother's deaths;
tears fall in shame into Shariah shade.
Come to this place and meet the godhead,
smell His smoke and see His flame.

Hear the crack and quake of triumph,
but know that only death can save.
Defeat is glory to the fallen; to win, a pyrrhic paradox.
The cancer cells are in the lymph
and in the blood of infidels.

The strategy is wisely chosen...
metastasise, kill from within.
There is no cure, there is no answer.
Cytotoxins kill the body;
belief will loose genetic hold.

All the boys have killed their quota,
mothers have gathered  cells of sons,
raining down from the prophet's hands.
This is the end...the dying writhing.
Not of mankind, but of blind faith. Praise be.

tectak
2015

Hi tectak - I think there are 3 issues with the poem: i) the logic is hard to follow, and I am not sure that it is consistent in the first place; ii) the basic idea is that of the urban guerilla Jihadist being a cancer cell in host societies, but it comes late in the poem, and isn't obviously related to the first couple of stanzas. It feels like jumping from one thing to another. iii) it is too prosey

This might need quite a few reworkings.

Thanks rons,
this is exactly what the piece needed. I confess that it is hotch-potch soup that has not been off the boil for more than a year. I just keep tossing in carrots every now and then but never actually tasting it. Yes to the basic stock. It is the cancer metaphor. The rest is watery and thin. Events made me lift the lid on it again and you are right and we know it, it is in need of a reconstruct. Just one point on the Sharia shade. The point was made on TV last year by a young (teen) Muslim gurl who said that though Sharia law application made her life as a woman intolerable, she could hide her tears behind the burka whenever emotion got the better of her. She also inducated that her friends cried behind tbe burka and were ashamed for so doing. Alliteration got the better of me a Shariah shame was diluted to Shariah shade. It didn't work. Incidentally, this girlls interview is still on youtube somewhere. It is sadly compulsive. Perhaps I should just have transmogrified her words.
I will take your points on board and give it one more chance to be something it isn't yet.
Very best,
tectak