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"In His Name, I am None"
I begged aloud to empty air
for any sign that He was there,
Until at last His heat I felt;
It shocked me silent as I knelt.
Away I ran, a frightened bride;
He found my vows on altar-sides.
Upon Himself He placed my blame,
Disrobed me of my long-learnt shame.
He spoke
His silence split me wide
as floods of flame erased my pride;
His voice drowned each breath I drew,
His eyes the dark I vanished through.
My hope and fear became my pyre;
God tastes Himself within my fire.
My mirror melts inside its frame
and I am lost
inside His name.
No more the bride,
No more the groom.
No more the voice,
No more the tomb.
All hunger spent,
All borders gone,
The fire remains
and I am none.
I have worked on this one on and off for yonks, but I cannot get it to sing. The middle stanza especially eludes me, I cannot get the delirious, desperate, ecstatic voice it needs. Any suggestions about this or thoughts about any of it would be very welcome ::pray::
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It’s fairly compressed, from what I see. I’d recommend splitting some parts up. For example repetition one - white space - repetition 2. It’ll make it easier to read and can help with how emotional it may be read as. What I’d do in the repetitions maybe lose the “the” in some repetitions. It can help with focus and mental fatigue.
The middle stanza could become
Widely split
By overwhelming silence.
Floods of flame,
Erasing pride
His voice … drowning,
As if breath had been -
Taken away.
His eyes empty,
As if swallowing me whole
To vanish within.
Hope, fear
My pyre.
God tasted my fire,
To taste himself.
The glass mirror,
Liquified, the frame stands.
Standing taller than I could.
I’m lost
Inside his name,
Meaningless meaning
Was bron.
This is a slight rework focused on shortening lines yet still carrying the meaning you meant. It is just meant to give an outlook what it could be instead of what is. The section is dense. Sometimes the densest poems are just a few lines.
Overal it’s a solid piece, i gave you all the tips I have. And good look writing on.
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Those are some bold ideas, thank you so much! Breaking it up could work, perhaps into three for thematic purposes. I will have a good think about it.
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No problem, keep me up to date.
I just split it all up for easier interpretation of the lines itself.
I know that rhyme, rhythm, and meter are not academically standardized.
I am well aware of that, yet I primarily do free verse, and it's based on instinctual writing.
I try to avoid academic language or structure. My poems are not meant to convey a single answer.
I try to convey the unknown through minimalism, mostly dense short stanzas with many line breaks.
If you'd give a critique, please keep this in mind.
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(11-13-2025, 10:09 AM)Mostly Holy Wrote: "In His Name, I am None"
I begged aloud to empty air
for any sign that He was there,
Until at last His heat I felt;
It shocked me silent as I knelt. ... the lines are too regular, the rhymes too predictable. Overall impression: forced.
Away I ran, a frightened bride;
He found my vows on altar-sides. ... forced rhyme again
Upon Himself He placed my blame,
Disrobed me of my long-learnt shame. ... and again
He spoke
His silence split me wide
as floods of flame erased my pride; ... cliched, forced rhymes
His voice drowned each breath I drew,
His eyes the dark I vanished through.
My hope and fear became my pyre;
God tastes Himself within my fire.
My mirror melts inside its frame
and I am lost
inside His name.
No more the bride,
No more the groom.
No more the voice,
No more the tomb. ... prose
All hunger spent,
All borders gone,
The fire remains
and I am none.
I have worked on this one on and off for yonks, but I cannot get it to sing. The middle stanza especially eludes me, I cannot get the delirious, desperate, ecstatic voice it needs. Any suggestions about this or thoughts about any of it would be very welcome ::pray::
Hi Mostly - I think you need to get away from 'trying to write a poem' and let the poem come to you. Nothing in here feels genuine. Rather, it feels as if you've got an idea for a poem on a certain topic, and you're trying to find the rhymes and lines necessary to make it happen. That's not the way you can get a poem to 'sing'. There isn't a lot of suggestions for improvement that I can give, because almost every line is forced and cliched. Perhaps you'd need to start afresh on this one.
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I would say ignore Busker's criticisms. Your poem is 99% perfect in terms of readability and in terms of your feelings showing through. The 1% that doesn't quite make the grade is this line, where the meter doesn't quite match: "His voice drowned each breath I drew,"
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Ty for your kind words, Evan, but I rather think busker is right, and as a consequence I have abandoned this poem. I cannot get it to work, and my source material (medieval mystical texts) is full of imagery and ideas that have become cliche, so either I ignore my own source material or my poem will be full of cliches, too. Marguerite Porete deserves a better poem than anything I could write!
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(12-09-2025, 09:26 PM)Mostly Holy Wrote: Ty for your kind words, Evan, but I rather think busker is right, and as a consequence I have abandoned this poem. I cannot get it to work, and my source material (medieval mystical texts) is full of imagery and ideas that have become cliche, so either I ignore my own source material or my poem will be full of cliches, too. Marguerite Porete deserves a better poem than anything I could write!
Oh but don’t give up on the source materials for inspiration! Mystic xtian writers are full of such richness. Could you write a poem as if you are (for example) Marguerite Porete? Not Marguerite Porete as she wrote, but how she lived? Maybe freewrite and then see if any lines give you that “aha!” feeling. Think of this as part of a “research and development” phase for the poem you’ll eventually write. Don’t force it, but don’t give up on the idea. Maybe it will revisit you in a different way.
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Hmm, perhaps I could adapt some of the dialogue sections of "Mirror of Simple Souls" into a poem, instead of trying to write from Porete's perspective (which is alien to me). Idk how effective that would be but it may be better than this approach. I shall do some research on poems in the form of dialogues, see if it is feasible to write a discussion between Love, Reason, and Soul. Ty for the suggestion.
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First of all, a beautiful conveyance of revelation.
Here's what feels like some minor issues to me:
"His heat" — I think "warmth" might be more appropriate of the Saviour;
"It shocked me silent as I knelt. / Away I ran ..." — maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but this feels like it just does not follow: fright and retreat before a divine revelation can be a genuine reaction, but if that's what's being meant here, I think it can not be just thrown in as a passing line, as running away immediately after kneeling in shocked silence makes the scene and narration erratic;
"His voice drowned each breath I drew" — as an ESL I might be mistaken, but I think "drowned" is still only one syllable, so changing "each" to "every" might fix the rhythm.
Hope this is useful, I'm not accustomed to critiquing anything.
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