How glad I am...edit 2. Thanks to leanne,acheb,duke,lizz,troph, cnl

[tectak]

Hi tectak - this is hard for me to offer decent critique on, because I don't quite feel your sense of despair (god has been gone for 4 generations now...at least). I felt, however, that some tightening up would help anyway. Hi achebe. Thanks for this...all crit eaten. You couldn't feel my sense of despair? Good...there is none. This is an anthem on liberation and freedom. Joy is mine....or the characters

How glad I am...

God has gone; thank god a soul like mine can be denied. I think it's more powerful with the shorter opening: "God is gone". The 'thank god...' is a weak, misplaced attempt at humour. Weak and misplaced...maybe. But humour. No...not the intent. Hypocrisy is a possibility but as this whole story has been told many times before, the same old error-traps are there. You know the atheist's death wish...it's like joining the Automobile Association only when you car breaks down. That was the irony...like most irony, it gets wasted
No worms nor maggots, the carrion convoy,  I love 'carrion convoy'. Although worms and maggots are cliched, 'carrion convoy', whether intended or not, reminds me of 'to die and to go we know not where, the sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod' from Measure for Measure, and a number of other literary references. It's more allusion than cliche, is what I'm saying. Again, there WILL be cliche in this. Deliberate cliche is only a repetition of what is acceptable to the highest number of readers and allusion is just one of the ways of hiding cliches. I don't want to hide them for the reason given,though I will take out maggots because flies don't lay eggs underground...my mistake
grave thieves that steal dead flesh and history,  I think the 'dead' just draws out the line unnecessarily.
will any longer fill my head with dread.  similarly, 'any longer' adds nothing to the line. By golly you are right. I forgot the "No" at stanza start. Stupid error. Thanks

God has gone; leaving the space in which he never was   ...I think it reads better without 'in which he never was' - there's nothing to be gained by insisting that he never was, because your reader isn't likely to be a fourteenth century nun who'd get shocked by it. I suppose 'leaving the space' is a bit ambiguous, but it sounds better with just that. Ahahhh. Now on this I am on firm ground. There is a very strongly implied adage in this. The line sets out to argue the need to create a god if there isn't one...part of the human condition. To exemplify the oddness of the concept a hint is given to a homeopathic god-space. You know, dilution to near zero BUT the space (or volume) retains potency. If that isn't clear then I failed, though I did try to get clarity of thought back by describing the "room" in which god was assumed to live as untouched by his presence. No signs whatsoever that he had been there. No crumbs on plates, no dust on shelves...just a pristine and sealed god-space waiting for an occupation that never actually came. I referred to crumpled notes to humanise the metaphor....if god had been there, I imagine he would have sent me a message, a scribbled note...and if that failed, then more and more scribbled notes...to no avail. If they had been there at all they would have been as inconsequential as litter. Now see what you have made me do? I am explaining wot I wrote...and that means the poem has failed.
exactly as he found it. No dusty shelves,
no crumbs on plates gone blue with mould,  this is the second beautiful line in the poem
no scribbled notes to litter up my life.  I don't know if 'litter up' is a new expression or just an attempted clever way of mixing up 'light up' and 'litter', but it doesn't do anything great for me, particularly after the previous line.Common parlance UK

God has gone; I sleep alone and deep each night.
No prayers before I lose the light;
and, oh, how good that makes me feel.
To fall to slumber guiltlessly is heaven newly named.  I found this entire stanza to be all tell, and no show. Also, not needed. I note and respect the opinion. Others may disagree because this stanza is PIVOTAL to the piece. It brings the reality of godlessness into the human psyche. It may not be original, but as I mentioned earlier, that only means that others HAVE thought the thought before me. I cannot change this or omit it simply because it demonstrates how difficult it is to lose god yet still feel obliged to redefine heaven. I could write another piece on this axiomatic musing alone. I won't.  

God has gone; and all the jumbled junk he pushed into my life  ....again, an unncessarily long line. I think you can change it to '...gone: the jumble pushed into my life' Agreed almost
is lost to me. I do not know and do not care
which parable is where,what skewed and false
judgemental threats may still be found.

God has gone; I look but not to find Him anymore.
Now I know that when I smiled upon a child, ....terribly cliched, this smiling upon a child.
or held a hand that weakly grasped, ....more cliche. Lending a hand to the weak.
or kissed a wrinkled  brow above a tear,  ....'wrinkled brow'? really? what next, 'pale cheeks'? 'bonnie lass'? The cliche made me cringe.
or soothed a pain with loving balm, ....I'd rather you used Tiger Balm. 
or cheered a worthy besting for another's pride,  ...I fall upon the thorns of life, I faint. The entire section from 'child' to here is one suppurating cliche after another
or lifted from the sea a dying bird,  ...the dying bird cliche I can live with, it's passable
and warmed it 'til it flew from me, to all the above...yes but the cliches ARE so patently passe that they are almost token representations of love, comfort, empathy, tolerance, concern and the GREATER need for real friends instead of false beliefs. I vindicated myself before submitting this so to some degree I was under a sturdy umbrella wating for the drops to fall. I must say, I didn't expect (or understand the use of) "suppurating". Still don't.
or sang a quiet song...alone, perhaps,
or in an evening throng, with friends around a fire,
that this was me, and what I had been all along. this is a nice conclusion to the stanza

I never asked for faith in god,
yet knowing he was never there,
how glad I am  that god has gone. ....I'd prefer 'now I'm glad he's gone'. The extra syllables make it an agonisingly slow read without adding meaningfully to the sonics of the line. Again. A "yes" to this; though there is a miniscule allusion to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj05EY2aP7I, from which I got this final cliche

tectak2016

Original

Again. Thanks for the input. As you can tell, I will make changes. Credited.
Best,
tectak[/b]