Serp,

This poem is intense and charged with meanings, that hide behind sophsiticated images such as these:
"The buildings were bowing as far as their
lightning rods would allow them,
laying their air-conditioning-choked pot plant leaves
before my feet, amidst the donkey’s whine traffic grunt –

In the opening lines, that I truly liked. They defamiliarize the common, mundane urban scape and bringing it much closer to the speaker's point of view through the personification that reflect's her own understanding and perception of the place in which she dwells.

The densely bracketed statement:
"(Maybe when there are only overly ornamental churches
built for architectural feat rather than the practicality
of rock foundations built for bodies rather than brains, or
when silver crosses are not worn by sinners
but by the pure and righteous, or perhaps when bread and wine
are realised to have little nutritional value, or when
we choke plastic trees with tinsel giving thanks to the
day alone,
I will be able to rejoice in this little boy’s efforts with the glossy book
without sinful cynicism. or simple retorts)".

Presents a wonderful associative rythm which brimms with an underlying convictions about Chruch, ecology and other major issues in each person's lives, again turning to the speaker's subjective standpoint about such matters .

I think that the ending does not lead to an entire closure, since once the speaker finishes portraying her own ideas and viewpoint, the responsibility and intellectual flow leads to another character: "what happens when he closes his eyes… by issuing a question that does not receive a reply in the poem intself. One must think of himself or herself as this little boy who the speaker sees and try to sort out their own beliefs as far as the thematic layer of the piece is concerned. This is one of the ways to bridge the ... in the end of the poem where you elegantly managed to make sure that the piece and the idea it tries to convey will keep on resounding in s' minds.

Really liked this one .

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"He whispered something to her, did the Fine Prince, / something about love and night and intention. / She heard no hoof-beat of the horse and saw no flash of the / shining steel". - Gwendolyn Brooks, "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters".

Thank you for submitting it again. What did I say about it the last time? A lot of good things. They still apply, of course.

First off, I'd shift "as their" down a line to possess the lightning rods. It's a subtle change in rhythm that might not be apparent without lingering on the linebreak, but I think it helps. Air-conditioning-choked is a mouthful, and not in the good choke-evoking way; it simply doesn't help the flow, which is important in your opening lines. Basically, you want a smooth flow into the meat of your poem: it's the "hook" everybody hears about in writing classes. I like the bowing buildings, although I'm not sure if it's the genuflecting bow or a bow caused by strong winds - what kind of buildings are they? Little details like these are rebars through the concrete images of your poem.

I do have to wonder about "pot plant leaves", though. Buildings - office buildings in particular - make me think of potted plants, but here it smells like cannabis. Either leave ambiguous or define it to set the mood further, whichever your intention is.

The donkey's "whine traffic grunt" - this is odd. The use of "traffic grunt" is perfect, but the whine just doesn't work. I've seen donkeys and I've never heard them whine. They're just not whiny creatures, and you don't expect a whine to accompany a grunt. Either replace it or just toss it, I don't think the flow is affected much by the loss.

Now, as for the tract: I don't know if cardboard works. It's a transient material, but not typically used in a glossy context. I think it may be appropriate to use something more ephemeral for a religious tract than what you have. Otherwise it's just right, and even this is a minor complaint. "Momentary multi-hued memories" is fine, but the way you have them visually isn't. I would rework it; perhaps memories should go onto the previous line. Try tweaking it a little; keep in mind that visual presentation is at least as important as how it sounds when read. Enjambement is only partly a tool of flow.

Oh, and before I forget - I quite like the ten year old line, and the one before. It's aptly innocent and even if the flow isn't perfect, it's just right. Don't touch it.

The couplet after the first stanza is also works well, although it may be more effective if you drop "I had a smile on my face" to a new line and turn two lines into three.

Now, on to the tough part. The next major section is dipping into the abstract, whereas before it's pretty concrete. This is not an easy thing to do, so it's not surprising that there's room for definite improvement. On the plus side, there is some effective abstraction as well.

First of all, though, you are lacking a smooth transition. You're moving into the second major form of the poem and it feels abrupt. You could do something small, like "And I opened my eyes" or "Then I opened" or similar, or make it a bit longer; there are various ways you can ease the move. That little "I" just feels too solitary, as if you're shutting out the street, the boy, all of that, and it just negates the concrete detail that you're going to have to rely on to get through the abstract detail here.

I not sure what exactly the content of the pamphlet is. You're referencing strong, old images like mirror ball and prophecy (which, together, tell fortunes). Some of this just doesn't seem to make sense, though - "eager profit prophecies" hints at salvation, but the neon halos and attention-needy objects don't appear to fit. This is really just screaming for concrete detail - something that grounds reality and tells us why, exactly, this is important enough to be written down.

It's perfectly fine to stumble off numbered pages, and the enjambement works well enough. And thankfully we're back on solid ground with the next stanza and a bit of repetition. Effective repetition, even. It's self-confident and justifying, even though there's no "but" - "but I was still there" - "but it was burning" - I'm not sure if that's intentional, but it still works.

And, of course, the object stanza comes up. This is the thrust of the poem, and it's self-obvious as that; I'm not sure if it needs tabbing out. Certainly that won't make a difference when you read it out loud. As to the brackets, they're not quite necessary, either. They might serve to show that it's an introspective soliloquy, but you could do that simply enough by adding a colon to pocket: in the last stanza. You are isolating the stanza and that's not necessarily a good way to work with poetry; try integrating it and seeing how it feels. This is really a cosmetic issue, though.

I rather like this stanza by itself, and I don't see much that needs changing here. I do have two small problems, though. One is the sinners/righteous idea. I would suggest that this should be the other way around; after all, one of religion's (Christianity's) most powerful ideas is that there are no righteous, and sinners are the important ones that religion really talks to. A little boy like yours would probably consider himself a sinner. I think it makes more sense reversed. The second thing is the ". or simple retorts". It seems weak - I'd put a dash between "cynicism - or" or something similar.

The denouement: excellent. I have no complaints here, but one editing comment: a comma after book, and changing "wondered" to "wondering" (after all, it's praying, not prayed).

All in all, I think this poem has great potential, and it's already quite enjoyable to read. I'm running out of time, but I'm interested in what you can do with it. Hope this helps, and if there's anything you're not clear on (or if I'm just way off on something), please send me a note, I'd love to talk about it.

the very first stanza had me relatively confused,
but the whole thing builds very steadily and forcefully, and that's what kept me reading.

the second to last bit, the indented one, is by far the most insightful, thought provoking.
i might have ended on that part, with some modification. that i might have done.
but you might not be me, and nevertheless this is, overall, very fine work.

--
when she walked, her knees cracked like a pick-up truck driving full-force over a deer carcass.
~stupidvagina

this, by the way, was the other one i had in mind
Tim already gave you a whole lot to work with, critique-wise, so i won't even dig in, in that sense... just enjoying.

this is one of the few pieces where repetition actually works and what's more, it adds to the content. a rare thing that it's so well done.

the way you say "god in my hand" and then "money in my pocket" touched me. i think that pretty much sums up why i like this poem - it's the intimacy. that forceful, cynical intimacy. such an oxymoron, yet it works. this poem, it's a close-up on the perception of losing faith... and yet, gaining something else, perhaps another kind of faith. this poem made my day. my week. or more.

--
+ thehungersite.com
+ suture | artists for charity | 2envision

way too deep for me, but I liked playing along.

--
"I've taken enough walks alone
to know how real nothing is."
~dystopian-dream-girl

sorta surreal, in the imagery, and very nice. i like the bracketed bit. i like your style

The best you've ever written, I think. Actually, scratch that, I'll just say my favorite because I'm not qualified to judge it qualitatively. <-(huh?)

But yes, I do like it. A whole lot. I heard it before I read it, which may have something to do with it. The first time the "but that's ok that's ok" comes in I was already hooked, and when it returned you had me gutted and in the freezer.


Oh, and your voice has a lovely timbre.

--
Sieg Heileluiah!

you heard it?


I've never read this piece out loud.....

--
Days of wine and roses, days of wine and roses
All the artists flew in and all the arseholes flew out in '72


<`MinorKey> and don't drink so much that you remember having fun...

[link]

--
Sieg Heileluiah!