Babal

[Leanne]

Hi River,

I've been reading and following most of your changes but felt you were getting quite good enough guidance to workshop this; however, as there is a dearth of dense, high quality writing on the boards at the moment I thought I'd sink my teeth into this properly.  My first impression, reading the section titles, is that I'd find it interesting to see you continue a progression through mythological events as your base analogies -- it seemed like that's what you were doing, from the beginning (Mother Earth, then Men) but then you go and chuck in Mexico and it all goes awry   .  I was thinking, if you were to follow up with my perhaps too pretentiously intellectual notion, that Mexico could be Fire.  You already have Lucifer in there and a Prometheus reference wouldn't be entirely out of place (you can mix your mythology all you like, I like it better that way since it encourages me to draw parallels).  

Babal

for Kim

1. Mother Earth

-- Babylon stole her architects -- I must say, I'm not keen on the em-dashes to start sections -- stylistic differences, obviously, but why?
from Egypt, her engineers from Greece, her doctors
and priests from Israel: that is why our tongues
are tied with Şibboleths. Truly, meat

is the sweetest sin, and Plato,
Plotinus, Valentinus, lied to us. They promised us -- actually Plato kind of promised "women for duty, men for pleasure", but no matter...
angels for wives, mortal gods for husbands, yet all we got
were grave old men, anxious Jocastas. -- I'm not sure that anxious is the best adjective here.  Not that Jocasta didn't have good reason to be anxious, obviously -- but I feel this could benefit from something to set it apart from the run of the mill "rapist's wife who ends up shagging her son" kind of stereotype.  Prozacked Jocastas?

2. Grave Old Men

--my mother
and my father plagued me -- you don't need "my" here
when they raised me.
Or rather blessed,

how the knowledge of old age -- the "how" confuses this sentence -- I'd suggest a semi-colon after blessed, then straight into "the knowledge"
confused youth's understanding. 
Yet have I grown enough to shave 
this hircine curse's shape -- metamorphosis is a good symbol for youth, I like it

into a Spanish beard? Galleons sail
on pacific currents concretized -- I feel that you need Pacific unless you're suggesting that the currents are calm and that would be a bit bland
across Katipunan Avenue
between my Philippines and your Mexico. 

3. Mexico

-- what a Şibboleth! Our old school's shattered stones
are now the home to snake-like trumpet vines, just as your English -- you could try "snaking" instead of "snake-like"
is no longer the same as mine, and your Bible grows -- grows or becomes... I like grows to link to the vines, but I like becomes because of the alliteration and metric effect
overshorn, incomplete. Truly, meat -- nice use of rhyme to link

is the sweetest sin, so that when Lucifer
confused his craving for a love, he was cast down
to diabetic hell. The King and Queen of Corinth -- diabetic hell really throws me out of the mood of the piece -- it's far too trite (sugary, if you will)
were far from old when they raised me,

Teiresias the sex-changing cataract no man -- I think you're missing an opportunity to play up the unwelcome prophetic quality of Teiresias
but child: Plato did speak truth
when he said fleshly woman is a child. -- there are two uses of "child" so close together, and without a significant shift in the meaning or context -- this really doesn't work for me -- either build the contrast, or lose a child
Dare I subscribe? You know how tragedy works: -- again, Teiresias -- there would be no daring involved.  It would simply happen, surely?

I am become an Indio Abelard, -- enter adoration, but here it is one of intellect only, separated by distance, an internet love? Allusion to this most tragic of love stories really shifts the mood
grafted to cursed flesh, to shattered stone,
and you remain afloat, a child of God,
a blinding angel, mute and genderless. -- "genderless" is an interesting choice of terms considering the allusory Abelard's un-sexed condition, enforcing Heloise's chastity (well, that's the theory I suppose)

4. Hermaphrodite

-- what a devilish love! It was no storm
but flesh-dissolving bile that broke
the Tower of Babel, that spread 
like pâté men across the earth. -- the "hermaphrodite" can be taken either as a deception, or as a fusion.  I don't know which it is yet, but I'm leaning toward the deception.  I am concerned by the phrase "like pate men" because of the extreme ambiguity which lends nothing significant to the meaning that I can tell.  Are they "pate men" or are they "spread like pate"?  I feel that clarity is vital in this last stroke of your pen.

I wonder if you're also not missing a little bit of an opportunity, in your last section, to hark back to Plato's Symposium and the definitions of love?  Specifically the speech of Aristophanes, where he's talking about the double bodies and three sexes and all that.