Imposter Dressed In White

Beneath eager shears lies a wolf
Of which even Heaven cannot see
This holy hellhound thrives amongst it's prey

A serpent's assumtion builds a fortress of correctitude
In the pits of Hell
He was the one who cried wolf, third times the charm

O.o

"Beneath eager shears lies a wolf"

- ...I'm not sure what you're trying to say. "Eager shears?" Shears are scissors. The wolf under the scissors... well, it's an interesting image, and seems to have a lot to it--but it's a little too abstruse. You want original, vivid images, but not images so complex or off-the-wall that the reader has trouble understanding them even after a good bit of thought.

"Of which even Heaven cannot see"

- If it's the wolf that Heaven can't see, that "of" in the beginning of the line is completely superfluous and ungrammatical. Scratch it.

"This holy hellhound thrives amongst it's prey"

- First of all, "it's" should be "its," as "hellhound thrives amongst it is prey" makes absolutely zero sense. Secondly--I kind of like what you were trying to do with the "holy hellhound" thing, but the juxtaposition of good and evil has been so overdone in amateur poetry that it falls short of the mark. Try something a little subtler?

"A serpet's assumtion builds a fortress of correctitude"

- O.o Okay. "Assumption" has a "p" in it, and though "correctitude" is a word, it's one that doesn't belong in poetry. First of all, despite the fact that it is a word, it doesn't sound like one; secondly, there's no flow, and the sounds are too harsh. The rest of this line has a lovely, sibilant, almost hissing sound to it that really underscores the image of the serpent--"s," "m," "n," "p," "b," "f," and "r" all have relatively soft, rolling sounds--and then you throw in "correctitude?" All those harsh, hard sounds really ruin what you had going.

If you want to keep that "-tude" sort of ending, I'd suggest maybe replacing "correctitude" with "certitude." It has something of the same meaning--at least belongs to the same vein--and has the sibilant and rolling sounds in the beginning to balance out that heavy "t" and "d."

"In the pits of Hell"

- Why is this line so short? It throws of the flow. I'd bring the last two words of the first line down to the beginning of this one, just to even things out a bit.

"He was the one who cried wolf, third times the charm"

- He? He who? The serpent? ...Interesting imagery, of evil against evil--sort of a "no loyalty among thieves" moment, yeah? If that's what you're going for, than bravo! But maybe clarify a bit?

- Hm. "Times" should be "time's." Also, the comma's misplaced; as it is you have a run-on there. A few choices you might want to consider for replacement:

He was the one who cried wolf (third time's the charm

He was the one who cried wolf: third time's the charm

He was the one who cried wolf--third time's the charm

Or maybe even consider moving that second part down to its own line?

All in all, I thought this was better done than your last poem. You have some interesting concepts here and I think if you cleaned it up this could be quite lovely and dark. =)

im gonna go through this as i read your comment:

-giving human emotions to something not human is called "Personification" anyways, if u dont know already the poem is about jesus and u probably already no the whole heaven-hell lamb-goat thing...so jesus is disguising himself so he seems like a lamb when in reality he is just a sneaky and clever wolf hinding beneath lamb's wool...

-i understand the "of which heaven cannot see" thing

-if you can read between the lines it should make sense now that ive told you what it's about

-i get the "correctitude" thing

-and the short line stuff

-yes, the serpent...that was the last living being i talked about (serpent=satan...atleast in this case) so that would be the "he" in that line. the whole evil v.s. evil thing as i hope u already know is because satan is jealous of jesus so he reveals him for what he truly is to bring him down a notch in the world..

after ive explained it (or tried) i hope that you still think it has a bit of potential in it...thanks

As an English major in college, yes, I'm acquainted with the term "personification." ^~ I was just saying that the personification of shears as eager doesn't make sense in the current context. Perhaps you could explain it to me?

The "Of which Heaven cannot see" thing--yes, it's understandable, but grammatically incorrect. And it would improve the flow if you delete that superfluous "of."

And the message--is this supposed to be painting Christ as a "bad" figure, for lack of a better term? I'm rather perplexed. Franky, I think it works better without including Christ and just using good and evil as the conflicting sides; it's more universal that way, and more easily understandable.

Yes I will...Okay, it is basically saying that someone's ready to reveal Christ for what he really is...

I went to go "Edit" my post and it wouldn't let me so I gave up...I tried to take off the word "of"

Yes, it is more universal, but making universal would make the poem more vunerable to conformity which I don't want...

It won't let you edit? Eep! If that's the case, you should contact Nate because there is a very serious bug. ^^;;

Try editing it again. If it doesn't work, contact Nate.

Anyway... "fortress of correctitude" is a phrase that should be slaughtered completely, when you can actually edit. It's very gobbledygook, or bureaucratese, if you know what I mean. ^_^;;