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

[tectak]

Hello tectak. This piece is solid, so I just have a couple of thoughts to offer. I keep coming back to this piece.

How glad I am... -- is this the first line of the poem? If so, you have god uncapped in the rest of the poem.

God has gone; thank god a soul like mine can be denied. -- I think you can do better than 'be denied.' The verb is too static.
No worms nor maggots, the carrion convoy,
grave thieves that steal dead flesh and history, -- I like 'carrion convoy' very much and 'grave thieves' for sonics, as well as convoy/history. I much prefer this type of pairing than head/dread in the next line. Dread is a little cliche.
will any longer fill my head with dread.

God has gone; leaving the space in which he never was -- I think you should use a comma at the end of gone, since 'leaving...found it' is not a complete sentence.
exactly as he found it. No dusty shelves,
no crumbs on plates gone blue with mould,
no scribbled notes to litter up my life. -- I enjoy this whole strophe. I like particularly the slight nonsense of god never having been there but he found it and presumably wandered about a bit. And maybe a colon at the end of it?

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. -- this line is weak -- 'good' is bland and 'makes me feel' is commonplace. Maybe something that sounds more original.
To fall to slumber guiltlessly is heaven newly named. -- falling asleep instead of to fall to slumber? Seems more direct and less arcane.

God has gone; and all the jumbled junk he pushed into my life -- again, I like this paradox that god isn't and never was present, yet he/she/it is acting on the speaker
is lost to me. I do not know and do not care
which parable is where,what skewed and false -- being unreasonably picky, there should be a space before what.
judgemental threats may still be found. -- can you replace the passive tense here? It's forcing you to use a static being verb.

God has gone; I look but not to find Him anymore. -- here you capitalize Him but you use the uncapped god elsewhere -- intentional?
Now I know that when I smiled upon a child, -- a little too sticky sweet with the smiling at children bit
or held a hand that weakly grasped,
or kissed a wrinkled  brow above a tear, -- extra space in front of brow
or soothed a pain with loving balm,
or cheered a worthy besting for another's pride,
or lifted from the sea a dying bird, -- it's getting a bit overly congratulatory of the speaker around this point. To circumvent this problem, you might consider writing the piece in the 3rd person. You would have to weigh the risk of losing the immediacy of the 1st person. Just something to consider.
and warmed it 'til it flew from me,
or sang a quiet song...alone, perhaps, -- 'alone' is getting a little bit maudlin. If you keep 'alone, perhaps,' I'd set it off with dashes or parentheses.
or in an evening throng, with friends around a fire, -- I might be wrong, but I don't think there is supposed to be a comma before with.
that this was me, and what I had been all along.

I never asked for faith in god,
yet knowing he was never there,
how glad I am  that god has gone. -- love the last three lines. I think you've done the refrain of 'god has gone' well. There's an extra space in front of 'that.'

tectak2016

Original

Despite all of my nitpicking, very much enjoyed the piece. The voice rings authentic, self-assured, and confident.

Hope this helps some,

Lizzie

Hi lizzie, sorry for my late thank you. I am still working on this on (and three others) so changes will come. I don't recognise the ubiquity or uniqueness of ANY god and so it is merely a convenient descriptor for a worn-out mythical super-being....rather less important than Batman who has, at least, no pretenders I admit to capitalising Him for two reasons. Firstly, because if I had not I am sure the response would be "Who he?"...and quite right, too. Secondly, I wanted to draw the final lie out of a single line. By decapitalisng "god" as a present tense decision, I have isolated my disbelief by back-reference to the old dogma..."Him". I will therefore leave it as is.
Regarding the comma(s) in the piece, I must look again. I tend to read ALL my stuff out loud to the dog (who firmly believes I am talking to her...rather than to my wife who would rather I didn't) and I use commas to suggest a pause, rather than for any accepted grammatical nuance...though that as well.
Best,
tectak