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The Testimony of a Roman Centurion



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Gender: Male
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Reviews: 56
Sun Dec 04, 2011 7:57 pm
Cole says...



The Testimony of a Roman Centurion

Sweet hymns of praise once raised I,
To the Goddess of Roma, O Victoria!
Who wields a champion fire and battle cry!
But what was born as doubt became a spark,
Of a new glorious morn upon mine heart.
And the lips of mine have begun to sing,
A new song of worship for another King.

In the land of Israel, far from Latin land,
Found a Holy Man of great virtue did I,
Who was sentenced to die by Pilate's hand.
Yet, found no fault in Him they did,
The High Priests called blasphemy His sin,
And convinced all others that He had lied,
And begged that the Man be crucified.

The duty to whip the Holy Man was mine,
And then lead Him past the gate to The Skull,
But, there did I find the damned Man divine.
When pierced His side, spilling blood, did I,
And His red water mine lips did meet,
Mine eyes soon awakened to His light,
And a new and ardent faith in me took flight.

Mine belief in this newfound God I hid,
For still Victoria in my heart did rule.
Yet, could she offer that which Yeshua did?
War within mine heart was waged,
Between the pagan gods and the lately Lord.
When the fight inside mine soul did end,
Did faith in Christ, beyond the gods, ascend.

On the Passover, day three of His fall,
Heard the news of His resurrection did I,
And when I sought Him, most glorious of all,
Did He appear to me and of me instructed,
To spread the word of a Victorious God,
Who defeated death and its silencing grace,
Trading darkling slumber for sweet embrace.

Fades the Victory Goddess within mine soul,
For a new Victorious God found have I!
With His words and love mine cup is full.
The idols of mine life crumbled they did,
For they could not offer redemption so sweet.
A Christian now I, who has accepted the call,
For Yeshua, O Christ is the glorious God of all!


Spoiler! :
This is based off of a short story I wrote. I'll post it soon!





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19 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 1037
Reviews: 19
Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:15 pm
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21WhiteRoses says...



This is awesome! Its very powerful and deep. Your word choice and sentence fluency is wonderful! I wish I could write like this! I would really love to read your story you based this off of.
"But death and darkness in that instant closed the eyes of Argos, who had seen his master, Odysseus, after twenty years...."





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662 Reviews



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Points: 52441
Reviews: 662
Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:31 pm
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dogs says...



Hey Hayden! Dogs here for your review today. I really really really really really realllllllly liked this piece! It told an amazing story and that story is really long. This poem might be a little longer then most poems but to condense that story into this size of poem is rather impressive.I really love the imaginative writing you used. You use really strong words and language which painted a strong image in the readers head which I personally love. I am definitely going to read your story if your poem was this good! Keep up the good work!!!!



TuckEr EllsworTh :smt032
Be a cool kid and do my Short Story Contest! viewtopic.php?f=404&t=97148&p=1122883#p1122883

"Quoth the Raven. Nevermore" - Edgar Allan Poe





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53 Reviews



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Points: 2394
Reviews: 53
Sun Dec 04, 2011 10:54 pm
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Ranger51 says...



Whoaah.... I wish I could write poetry like this. You have such an amazing gift and you're using it so well! I can't really review this... I want to see the short story! Post it soon!
"We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?"
-Fahrenheit 451





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36 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 310
Reviews: 36
Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:12 pm
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0o0Redrum0o0 says...



Okay, first of all, I want to say that this had to be one of the best poems I've ever read. It was truely phenominal. You have real talent, and I expect that you will go far as an author if you choose to pursue that path.

Second of all, you language was exquisite. The way you worded the lines made it sound as though it really was a Roman Centurian writing the poem. I also liked what you did with the rhyme scheme. You didn't ulternate the lines that rhymed through the whole poem, yet each stanza followed the same pattern.

Quote:
Who was sentenced to die by Pilate's hand.
Yet, found no fault in Him they did,

This is my favorite line.

All in all, this was an amazing and touching poem. Keep up the great work!
When I give up, I'm not showing weakness.
Sometimes, I'm just showing enough strength to move on.





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Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:12 pm
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Lumi says...



Good evening, Hayden.

Another religious piece, and another poetic miss. This poem fails for a number of reasons, the largest of which I’ll discuss in this review. Let’s start with how you take a ridiculous amount of space to say something you say in the first stanza.
Sweet hymns of praise once raised I,
To the Goddess of Roma
, O Victoria!
Who wields a champion fire and battle cry!
But what was born as doubt became a spark,
Of a new glorious morn upon mine heart.
And the lips of mine have begun to sing,
A new song of worship for another King.

What’s dictated in this stanza isn’t enlarged any further through the rest of the poem. You just tell a bible story in even less accessible language than the bible itself. So it’s a story of a dude coming to another faith. But you don’t tell us what he saw that was so awesome in Jesus, you don’t tell us why he’s doubting himself, and you spend all your time slathering worship sauce on Jesus. It makes for bad poetry, and that’s exactly what it’s done in this piece.

Your language that I mentioned just a few lines above doesn’t quite make sense. It’d be understandable if the entire poem was written with a constant style of that old tongue, but you deviate so frequently that you end up only having anachronistic O!s and mines. So you kill your flow and audience connection with the mere words you use. Not a good move, and not good poetry. But I think I told you this in the last poem I reviewed of yours. Hopefully this time you’ll edit.

I’ll assume that most of your issues stem from your demand that the entire poem follow a stringent rhyme and rhythm scheme…which most poets can’t pull off. In this case, you’re in the ‘most poets’ section.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

-Lumi
I am a forest fire and an ocean, and I will burn you just as much
as I will drown everything you have inside.
-Shinji Moon


I am the property of Rydia, please return me to her ship.





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Reviews: 56
Mon Dec 05, 2011 2:43 am
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Cole says...



@ Lumi: I appreciate that you took the time to review and I will do the best I can to improve my work. But, I will say this:

You can review a literary piece without being discourteous. I felt that your review was a bit malicious. An arrogant and insensitive review doesn’t make me want to change my piece at all. Rather, it makes me want to go in the opposite direction to oppose what you said.

Focus on giving me constructive criticism, not slandering my writing ability. You can give me constructive suggestions and tips without being rude.

I might need to revise my approach to poetry, but you need to reevaluate your reviewing methods just as well. Reviewing is about helping the author improve their work, trying to help them become their best. It's not about making a point nor is it a chance to arrogantly abuse someone's ability to write.

I would also advise you to stay away from reviewing religious pieces, since it seems that you cannot contain yourself from being nasty whenever a literary piece mentions Jesus Christ.

Again, I appreciate the attempt, but I will not be taking any advice from you until I am convinced that you earnestly desire to help me improve as a writer, not insult me.

Thanks : )

-H.








This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
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