Faith

[escher]

Born between urine and feces
in mucus, blood and sweat.
Exploding into the world 
like a blossom. 
And from that day forward
thrust through life's canal
towards unstoppable annihilation.
Mortality has always preoccupied
the clever ape who fears 
change above all else,
the only unknown 
in which I have found faith.
The difficulty for the ape in me
is to see beauty imminently.
To love so much that I feel as though
I will explode into the billion stars
from which I came.
Is my faith strong enough
to die each day, as graceful 
as the billion blossoms
that will one day take my place.

[Erthona]

The first three sentences are dependant clauses.

"Mortality has always preoccupied the clever ape who fears change above all else, the only unknown in which I have found faith." (How can one find faith in an unknown?)
___________________________________________________________________________
"The difficulty for the ape in me is to see beauty imminently."

imminently: "likely to occur at any moment; impending"

This line seem to be there for the rhyme, otherwise it makes little sense.
________________________________________________________________

This is (obviously) not particularly well written. The lines that do make sense are more or less cliche.  The idea of faith seems barely spoken to , of course the first three sentences does prejudice one.

Best,

dale

[fluorescent.43]

there's a lot of unfinished sentences in here, especially since you used capitals and proper punctuation... the subject of faith can make for good poetry if done well (and only if done very well) but here there is nothing new to say. you use rich language to disguise a very simple point: faith is good, faith is great, faith is really great. if you intend to edit this poem, think carefully on what you have to say, and if you truly have something to say, go with that. no matter how beautifully a poem reads or you think it reads, a poem must have meat as well as nicely constructed bones. good luck!

43.

[escher]

The first three sentences are dependant clauses.

"Mortality has always preoccupied the clever ape who fears change above all else, the only unknown in which I have found faith." (How can one find faith in an unknown?)
___________________________________________________________________________
"The difficulty for the ape in me is to see beauty imminently."

imminently: "likely to occur at any moment; impending"

This line seem to be there for the rhyme, otherwise it makes little sense.
________________________________________________________________

This is (obviously) not particularly well written. The lines that do make sense are more or less cliche.  The idea of faith seems barely spoken to , of course the first three sentences does prejudice one.

Best,

dale

Hi there, thanks for taking the time to critique this, its always very insightful. 

I had meant by 'the only unknown in which I have faith' to refer to change/transformation. Im wondering if my sentence structure failed to make that clear?  

The "beauty immanently" line  was a comment on whether we can find beauty in impending change/transformation/letting go of death, (whether physical or conceptual, like loss of identity). It seems to me like there is much of that resistance in life, especially for the animal who has evolved to have knowledge of their own mortality/transience.  
My purpose was to try to find an sense of holiness or sacredness in what I perceive as the reality/mystery of life - its a sort of response to religion.   

Thanks again

---

there's a lot of unfinished sentences in here, especially since you used capitals and proper punctuation... the subject of faith can make for good poetry if done well (and only if done very well) but here there is nothing new to say. you use rich language to disguise a very simple point: faith is good, faith is great, faith is really great. if you intend to edit this poem, think carefully on what you have to say, and if you truly have something to say, go with that. no matter how beautifully a poem reads or you think it reads, a poem must have meat as well as nicely constructed bones. good luck!

43.

Thanks for pointing out the sentence structure, I can see now that I have to execute each line better. I would like to make the poem clearer that its not about faith being great, but that faith has been misunderstood for so long (millennia), and that it doesn't seem relevant in todays increasing knowledge of what we know about our world. I tried to make the harsh realities humans struggle to deal with in life - transience and death - as beautiful/poetic as religion makes it, without stepping outside our world.

[Icon Zero]

The first three sentences are dependant clauses.

"Mortality has always preoccupied the clever ape who fears change above all else, the only unknown in which I have found faith." (How can one find faith in an unknown?)
___________________________________________________________________________
"The difficulty for the ape in me is to see beauty imminently."

imminently: "likely to occur at any moment; impending"

This line seem to be there for the rhyme, otherwise it makes little sense.
________________________________________________________________

This is (obviously) not particularly well written. The lines that do make sense are more or less cliche.  The idea of faith seems barely spoken to , of course the first three sentences does prejudice one.

Best,

dale

Couldn't an Agnostic be described as someone who has faith in an unknown?

[mackzmike]

I really like the subject matter, and it is well executed. It is my belief that poetry should read however the author wants it to read, which is why free verse can be so fun and well, free. However the reader might prefer that you used punctuation instead of consecutive lines that may appear to run on. You could fix this with commas at the end of certain lines. 

Aldous Huxley had this to say about faith versus belief:

"Faith is something very different from belief. Belief is the systematic taking of unanalyzed words much too seriously. Paul's words, Mohammed's words, Marx's words, Hitler's words---people take them too seriously, and what happens? What happens is the senseless ambivalence of history---sadism versus duty, or (incomparably worse) sadism as duty; devotion counterbalanced by organized paranoia; sisters of charity selflessly tending the victims of their own church's inquisitors and crusaders. Faith, on the contrary, can never be taken too seriously. For Faith is the empirically justified confidence in our capacity to know who in fact we are, to forget the belief-intoxicated Manichee in Good Being.” 

I'm curious to know which one you are alluding to in your poem.

Good job.

[jameso]

That change is the only thing you find faith in was very clear to me in the relevant lines. However I do agree that imminently seemed to rhyme in a poem with no rhymes. I do agree with the sentiments behind this poem, dying each day, finding faith in change and the experience of love. sounds very Buddhist.