The Sallman Head -- edit 3

[RiverNotch]

Trying out something different. Riverproof is me proofreading the work (to the best of my unprofessional, but professionally obsessive-compulsive, abilities), and as such is expected to be immediately addressed, in the poem if an unconscious decision, in a reply if conscious. All else, actual crit, which in this case, however long my last note is, is fairly short, I think -- I'm just feeling especially wordy today.

Jesus seems false—photo-shopped— Riverproof: Photoshopped? Or is that the more modern spelling? Also, the em dash at the end of the line makes the construction wrong: remove it.
to look brighter, lighter; Riverproof: This is where the em dash should be; starting a parenthetic with an em dash then ending it with a semicolon is I believe bad form.

so light, in fact, he floats. As much as I love the punch rhythm, I'm still missing the "that" -- but this may just be me.
It only shows one side

and that makes me wonder
if he hides his ugly side. Exactly!

He's framed as a role model:
chiseled jaw, cheekbones rising up

to heaven—candlelit eyes, Riverproof: Why suddenly separate candlelit eyes with an em dash, when it as a detail is essentially used the same? Is it for emphasis -- in which case devoting a whole stanza for it is emphasis enough. Remove all the em dashes here, replace them with commas, and remove the (even without the em-dash change, completely unnecessary) comma already in place.
Mel Gibson blue— Role model? This moment of irony (and considering the Passion, double so) feels perhaps a little too clear for the poem. [Note: have nothing against the man, just swaying with the wind here]

his pillowy gaze without desire
and looking up        to his dad. That's a heck of a long space. What is it for? To me, it reads as a defect -- the speaker, even if devout, doesn't seem the sort in his current polemic to give so much reverence to the father -- than a point of interest, but to others perhaps otherwise, so I'd suggest just going with your gut here.

I wonder how he ever enraged
or engaged empires; Riverproof: Colon instead of semicolon.

his heroin stare doesn't inspire.
Maybe people came to him to see the light

show—the radiant show, the halo show,
the skin show—fair faced I liked how you broke light and show, but then following it up with a series of essentially synonymous shows (even skin show, different enough, feels too tied/tired) massively weakens it. I'd prefer actual description over this -- and then, perhaps, "skin" something. As for the weird construction with "came to him to see the light show....fair faced and gleaming in his Hampton Whites", I think at this point it's excusable, with the vividness of (what I hope to be turned into) the description of the light show being enough of a distraction.

and gleaming in his Hampton Whites, Riverproof: Comma unneeded, I think.
in a time long before bleach. 

I've seen the Sallman head before this, but I never actually knew its name -- with this poem, I looked again, and for that you already win me an approval. But then you lose that by focusing on Jesus, rather than on the icon of Jesus -- that is to say, even though the title is specific, it isn't for me reinforced enough, so that it seems like all icons, ultimately all representations, of Jesus become over-sentimental, over-delicate. The solution for me would be slight additions to the start, perhaps "Jesus here" instead of just Jesus -- not a copy of the head itself, since this works fairly well as a more general critique of such depictions of Jesus in general.

In fact, this poem feels like it would be better if it just worked as a general critique of 'over-sentimental, over-delicate' icons of Jesus, rather than the Sallman head specifically. The Sallman head immediately strikes me as balanced in the sense that it has the capacity to split its audience clean in two: one group, the group your speaker seems to belong to, sees the aforementioned, while the other sees the exact opposite, with the clear, 'manly' look in his eye, the strong angles on his face, and, considering this image was made in the 1940s, the fact that this light is surrounded by darkness -- both senses, I think, are a little off, understandable considering the individuals' situations (I personally saw the same as the speaker first, but perhaps because I just came off of watching, again, Pasolini's Il Vangelo secondo Matteo, where his Marxist impulses make Christ a little bit more revolutionary that he was), but absolutely worthy of such skewering, at least from my devout perspective for the sake of temperance. And surely there are many more works, most of them probably not even considered for liturgy, that are really that bad, that are more worthy of veiled critique -- but of course, now I seem to critique myself, because simply reinforcing the specificity of the poem to the Sallman head without actually pushing the Sallman head into the main body of the work works well enough. 

Of course, if you happen to be talking about something else -- worse still, if you happen to be critiquing not the Sallman head nor its especially soft-hearted followers specifically, but the whole image of Jesus, I'd suggest much, much more subtlety in your attack, since all this poem should end up is a smug little note on a smug little view of a [relatively] smug little picture, again referring to Pasolini's film, to the image I'll link to below, and ultimately to the Gospels themselves -- easy to start, for such subtlety, with the now thrice-mentioned "here", right after "Jesus" in the first line. But I wouldn't recommend that -- it's much harder to fight a whole idea while working within it, rather than fight it with a brand new one, and that would mean destroying this already well-standing piece. Aye, well-standing -- to end, I really like this.

image removed. you can leave a link if you want to but we try to keep images in non-workshop threads. thanks, ella/mod.

Riverproof is me proofreading the work (to the best of my unprofessional, but professionally obsessive-compulsive, abilities), and as such is expected to be immediately addressed, in the poem if an unconscious decision, in a reply if conscious.

??? Are you saying the OP must address your notes immediately? All the OP is required to do is consider comments, not take action. If I've  misunderstood PM me and I'll take down the note. ella