Slave

(Warning: the semi-lucid ramblings of a poetically inept Atheist ahead.)


Slave

Our freedoms are there for God to see,
allowing us to decide, to choose, and ignore
the most basic instincts of our kind.
We are not slaves, not like the animals
that crawl, and cry, and eat, and mate;
nay, we are superior, created in God’s own divine image,
for we are human, above even nature.


Our actions are free
...............................from the taint of animalism;
Our actions are pure
...............................like the sheen of plastic;
Our actions are holy
...............................and free from the sin of nature.


See the poor, soulless beasts compelled,
unable to resist, forced to do the bidding
of their basal instincts. Humankind
has no such flaw: man is uninhibited
by primitive longings, for man is no mere animal,
for man is so much more.


But I hear some say:
“We too are beasts,
..............................we too are animals,
and it is to the rest of the Natural world
..........................................................that we are related.”


Rubbish, I say. You are - I’m afraid - wrong.
You see, I know the truth; we are not related
to all other living things (the very thought of it!),
nay, we are related to dirt.


And, for proof: as men do not throw their dung at men,
thus your false belief is wounded and hurt.

This works as philosophy and as condensed and elevated essay, but it doesn't do much for me as poetry. I'm sorry. I know a lot of older poetry tends to be like this, and I think you were able to word some parts of this well -- but there's no detail, no imagery, very little that will bring the poem to life and get me to connect with it.

More lines like "our actions are pure like the sheen of plastic" are what you want.

What are our freedoms? How are we not like animals? If you're being ironic here, bring out the irony in imagery and metaphors that say one thing explicitly but suggest something different when you look at them more closely. If this is straightforward, bring to it a richness of detail and imagery that will evoke the ideas that you want to convey.

the parts with the lengthy periods don't cut it for me. There's something way too elongated there.
S1 is very good, especially for this type of opening. I'd build from there.

I think it's very good!

I particularly enjoyed the remark about us being related to dirt. It had never struck me that way before, and I laughed my head off when I read it. Great job!

The one thing I caught was, perhaps, my fault.
I read this line-

"The poor, soulless beasts compelled..."

-as though the poor were soulless beasts!

Am I only reading that wrong, or is there a way to make that line clearer? Pardon my ignorance! Just wondering!

Goldie

Sureal,


With the first three lines, the reader will abandon hope of finding a poem beneath them.

If someone hobbled up to me in a bar and repeated them, I'd change the subject or tell him to get lost. It's flat, dull, not more well-conceived than most of the things people say right before falling off their bar stools. It could win a poetry slam, though, if followed up by other equally uncontroversial, self-satisfied statements.

For me, the most promising bit was "we are related to dirt." This is a gesture in the direction of figurative language and sensuous language. But the trope is abandoned before you give it full consideration and develop it. That idea alone could be its own separate poem (and would do well to see itself divorced from this).

I don't mind calling a 30-line shopping list of argument poetry. I'm a big fan, for example, of David Trinidad's sonnet that consists entirely of movie titles. But this doesn't show the cleverness or the thoughtfulness of Trinidad's sonnet. It doesn't feel like you spent nearly as much time writing the poem as you spent writing the half-logic argument defending your misanthropy.


Best,
Brad