Opium is the religion of the masses

[Erthona]

Thanks Todd, you always give good feedback and this is the case here. I agree that "succor" is a bit weak and maybe the entire line, but I've no idea with what to replace it at the moment, but I will keep the thought in mind. Yes, I will  indiscriminately cut "indiscriminately"   This was written in accentual verse and was supposed to be 3-6-3-6, but that didn't happen, so I really have no reason to keep the word, plus it improves the overall rhythmic quality of the line.  

" Marx was making a criticism on a relief from suffering while leaving the suffering in place. In this instance, you eliminate an element of the suffering (with a trade off). If you were to keep this construction I would find a substitute for mental anguish and keep these images more concrete. "

I was only making a play on the quote, not on the philosophy, so I was not trying for any equivalency, or one to one correlation; I would definitely need more than four lines to accomplish that. I would need to include that the middle class has died, and while it is one life support with one foot in the grave, it is not yet dead, so to do so would be ambiguous at best. Plus, mental suffering is there because the "proletariat"  now includes non-manual labor jobs, although one could say they are just as laborious   but one could also say that the proletariat is quite mental these days, but then again, they are a lot more educated than Marx's proletariat, thus more abstract.

However, it is no surprise that Marx was concrete seeing as how he was Prussian, and everyone knows of the concrete thinking of Germans; this is why technical manuals are more often written in German. Germans rarely use such devices as irony or satire, although I use them quite frequently (not to mention over statement ).                                                     

Oh well, now I'm just rambling on.

Best


dale

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Duke,

Thanks for the critique. I like the idea of "assuage". I am going with removing "indiscriminately" from L2. I can't go with your suggestion as it would screw up the rhythm of the last line, though if it were just the words it might be a good suggestion.

Thanks again,

dale

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burrealist,

First off thanks for taking your time to read and comment.

In answer to your question unspoken and not, I think what you are picking up on is the irony of the poem. Thus the hyperbole of such words as "pitiful", as you point out things are never so black and white as people would like to make them seem, this is not to say the poem is unsympathetic to the problems of the poor, it is however unsympathetic to black and white thinking.

Hope that answers your questions.

Best,

dale