Eve

[AttnAttack]

we met with ashen tongues
keeping hushed the sins we lay
thinking of.  then the night comes.  
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit' 

i received you on my knees

[vagabond]

we met with ashen tongues
keeping hushed the sins we lay
thinking of.  then the night comes.  
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
'our visit'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit'

i received you on my knees

References: Love Song of Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
                    Paradise Lost, Book 10, John Milton

interesting image, those "ashen tongues".. exstinguishes thoughts of romance right from the start. you could write "our ashen tongues met" ("we met with tongues" sounds a little strange to my ears)
would prefer to read "we kept the sins we lay thinking of // hushed. then the night came." (consider past tense here to be consistent with the first line)
 i don´t get the point of "our visit"..  and, to be honest, the whole bordel situation. "i received you on my knees" makes me think the subject (not a customer then?)  is a woman..   i´d like it if the content were easier to understand, but anyway, others are probably able to get your story (which seems interesting, but not quite so to make me do homework and read all those references you gave in that quote).

maybe you could leave out the apostrophe´s, they are a bit confusing, especially "   'ce bordel ..  "  because french has already that much of them among the words. it´s clear enough that those lines are a conversation.
consider an exclamation mark after "ce bordel sur mon lit" .

[tectak]

we met with ashen tongues at least begin with a capital letter, even though you may think the "message" in the piece so extraordinarily compelling...which I do not...as to not require correct grammar. I do not feel the compulsion to figure out if you don't because you cannot, or you don't because you think it is cute... 
keeping hushed the sins we lay If there is a reason for this guillotined enjambment I would like help in understanding just what you believe it achieves.  
thinking of.  then the night comes.  ....and so on, and so on. If you think that I am picky, wait until you write a decent piece of poetry. This won't do and it is insulting on the part of the character to presume that I or any other crit is prepared to waste time on it...so I will not. Joyeux noel.
See endpiece.
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
'our visit'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit'

i received you on my knees

References: Love Song of Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
                    Paradise Lost, Book 10, John Milton

Not really sure that there is anything available in this which is worth offering up an acceptable, to the writer that is, critique. I suppose a salutary reminder that as this is in the "intensive" forum it is beholden upon the writer to make sure that such proofreading (or pruf reading), which surely has been done, throws up any obvious problems, so saving the crits from mundanity. What I am really saying is, if the writer believes that this is his best shot then there is little a crit can do. Please read it through. If you are intent on developing something from this short nothingness then please make it work. I am critical of the piece only because I cannot believe that the penning of it made you satisfied...I hope then, that you will be pricked in to perfection. Go on...you know you want to. Best, tectak 

[AttnAttack]

we met with ashen tongues
keeping hushed the sins we lay
thinking of.  then the night comes.  
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
'our visit'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit'

i received you on my knees

References: Love Song of Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
                    Paradise Lost, Book 10, John Milton

interesting image, those "ashen tongues".. exstinguishes thoughts of romance right from the start. you could write "our ashen tongues met" ("we met with tongues" sounds a little strange to my ears)
would prefer to read "we kept the sins we lay thinking of // hushed. then the night came." (consider past tense here to be consistent with the first line)
 i don´t get the point of "our visit"..  and, to be honest, the whole bordel situation. "i received you on my knees" makes me think the subject (not a customer then?)  is a woman..   i´d like it if the content were easier to understand, but anyway, others are probably able to get your story (which seems interesting, but not quite so to make me do homework and read all those references you gave in that quote).

maybe you could leave out the apostrophe´s, they are a bit confusing, especially "   'ce bordel ..  "  because french has already that much of them among the words. it´s clear enough that those lines are a conversation.
consider an exclamation mark after "ce bordel sur mon lit" .

the 'ashen tongues' needs 'keeping hushed' or something to that effect directly after it so that you get a reason why they can't speak of their sins, or at least in a mental sense they lay buried.  I do like the way you wrote 'we kept the sins we lay thinking of // hushed.  then the night came'  unsure if I could make it past tense without disrupting my thought here: there is the chopping word, that like in a haiku, splits the poem in two.  it is a metaphor, an alusion, and a pun all at once.  i am not sure if i used it correctly, but if it is confusing i will consider revisting it.

---

we met with ashen tongues at least begin with a capital letter, even though you may think the "message" in the piece so extraordinarily compelling...which I do not...as to not require correct grammar. I do not feel the compulsion to figure out if you don't because you cannot, or you don't because you think it is cute... 
keeping hushed the sins we lay If there is a reason for this guillotined enjambment I would like help in understanding just what you believe it achieves.  
thinking of.  then the night comes.  ....and so on, and so on. If you think that I am picky, wait until you write a decent piece of poetry. This won't do and it is insulting on the part of the character to presume that I or any other crit is prepared to waste time on it...so I will not. Joyeux noel.
See endpiece.
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
'our visit'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit'

i received you on my knees

References: Love Song of Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
                    Paradise Lost, Book 10, John Milton

Not really sure that there is anything available in this which is worth offering up an acceptable, to the writer that is, critique. I suppose a salutary reminder that as this is in the "intensive" forum it is beholden upon the writer to make sure that such proofreading (or pruf reading), which surely has been done, throws up any obvious problems, so saving the crits from mundanity. What I am really saying is, if the writer believes that this is his best shot then there is little a crit can do. Please read it through. If you are intent on developing something from this short nothingness then please make it work. I am critical of the piece only because I cannot believe that the penning of it made you satisfied...I hope then, that you will be pricked in to perfection. Go on...you know you want to. Best, tectak 

You're right that I'm not satisfied with the enjambment.  It was hard for me to get the correct meter, and it certainly suffers from it, but I have an attachment to every word I've written in this poem because each of them is an allusion, a pun, a metaphor, a synecdoche, etc.  The caesura on line 3, followed by a trochaic foot and a spondee to signify a full stop. . well it could have been done better.  As for capitalization, its a style choice: Lowercase conveys a sense of sadness to me—personally—as if the speaker is saddened and cannot make the effort; filled with depression and anxiety.  I feel like the more I explain the more I realize that I have failed to convey my meaning well enough.  I am sorry.  I will remove the poem.

[vagabond]

what a strange conclusion: "i have failed to convey my meaning well enough. i will remove the poem."
this site would be pretty empty and otherwise filled with blunt statements if everyone followed this line of thought.
try to make it clearer.

[AttnAttack]

what a strange conclusion: "i have failed to convey my meaning well enough. i will remove the poem."
this site would be pretty empty and otherwise filled with blunt statements if everyone followed this line of thought.
try to make it clearer.

If I explain each line will it help? I want it to be more accessible while at the same time retaining all its subtleties. I fear I've read it too many times, and know it too intimately to be able to objectively look at it with brand new eyes. I meant for it to elicit a negative response in people after initial read, but I didn't think it would relate to how they critique as well.

[vagabond]

if you were aiming for a negative response .. then i believe there is not enough in the poem for the reader to object to.

[ellajam]

what a strange conclusion: "i have failed to convey my meaning well enough. i will remove the poem."
this site would be pretty empty and otherwise filled with blunt statements if everyone followed this line of thought.
try to make it clearer.

If I explain each line will it help?  I want it to be more accessible while at the same time retaining all its subtleties.  I fear I've read it too many times, and know it too intimately to be able to objectively look at it with brand new eyes.  I meant for it to elicit a negative response in people after initial read, but I didn't think it would relate to how they critique as well.

Relax No need to remove the poem or explain it. I suggest you give yourself, the poem and the site a little time, think about the crit and get some distance from the poem. Then you can decide if an edit will get your meaning across better than the current version or if you'd like to stick with it.

A purposely elicited negative response is not necessarily followed by a negative critique, just as a positive one is never guaranteed.

Immediate success is rare.

[bloated_corpse]

we met with ashen tongues
keeping hushed the sins we lay
thinking of.  then the night comes.
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
'our visit'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit'

i received you on my knees

References: Love Song of Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
                    Paradise Lost, Book 10, John Milton

this is a pretty little poem, that almost too obviously rejects grammatical standards [i'm assuming because you don't actually speak french--at least not very well], but nevertheless it works.
I see no purpose in the reference at the end, because the poem is probably not half as clever as you think it is. but, it does capture something, a moment, very simply and sweetly.

[AttnAttack]

we met with ashen tongues
keeping hushed the sins we lay
thinking of.  then the night comes.
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
'our visit'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit'

i received you on my knees

References: Love Song of Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
                    Paradise Lost, Book 10, John Milton

this is a pretty little poem, that almost too obviously rejects grammatical standards [i'm assuming because you don't actually speak french--at least not very well], but nevertheless it works.
I see no purpose in the reference at the end, because the poem is probably not half as clever as you think it is. but, it does capture something, a moment, very simply and sweetly.

I'm gonna rename the poem so people can see what I'm trying to do .  The line 'then the night comes.' is very important.  It can be read as either the man is orgasming or as the exile of Adam and Eve.  I hope this helps. I am also going to remove the line 'our visit' since it is the main thing I borrowed from Eliots poem, but I don't think it's necessary to convey what I needed in the initial read.  Ashen tongues and the Milton reference must stay, since reading his description of original sin leaving ash in the mouth made me think of cigarettes, especially ones after sex. Might change "sins" plural, to "sin" singular to make a subtle hint towards original sin, although I think plural works just fine since they know of all sin at this point.

My French is passable, but I haven't spent any time immersed in the language.  I am on my second year in college with it as my minor.

[ritwiksadhu33]

we met with ashen tongues
keeping hushed the sins we lay
thinking of.  then the night comes.  
        — 'qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?'
            'ce bordel sur mon lit' 

i received you on my knees

The first para paints a haunting, blurred picture of the disorder in our lives in remarkably few words, and I absolutely adore how the ending line reverses the meaning of "What have I done to deserve this?" (Does it really? Hmm. The more ambiguity the better, of course) The choice of ending line might have been better while keeping the same interplay alive, though.

[yimbus]

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” - Ernst f Schumacher

I understand that you want a poem that is ambiguous and complex, but if you are consciously trying to make it more complex then you should back off a bit. I like some of the imagery and tone, but as you mentioned basically every word has some deeper concept or context needed which while it may be beautifully done to you, it’s near impossible to read by anyone else. Simplify your words and make them flow better. Don’t strain to make complexities but instead just let them come to you. Whenever I write, I try to just write the entire thing at once without looking anything up or pausing. I get a rough concept then clean it up. Don’t pick your poem apart piece by piece and try to make everything over complicated. You shouldn’t be writing with a purpose to impress anyone with your knowledge or use of poetic devices

[Bocasi]

Short but strong. I can sense your skill level at crafting a solid poem.
Except the French part. Dammit y'all, do I have to open a translator page to read stuff? If I don't, I'm missing out. Yet I just wanted to relax.

Looking forward to reading more of your material.