The Crucifix is a Sex Toy

The Crucifix is a Sex Toy

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First Day:
The kinky confessional was lit by the moon.
Crucifixes offered up a mangled human sacrifice.
The Virgin Mary glared at me with a mother's stare.

Second Day:
My forehead was baptized by
rosary beads of sweat.
And then there was light.

Third Day:
Distorted demons made of
estranged shadows danced on the walls.
I prayed for an exorcism.

Fourth Day:
Footsteps hitting creaky panels ringed like the hellish
cries of unborn babies climbing up from Limbo.
Louder, louder, in my ears.

Fifth Day:
A silhouette stood over me
and the Holy Ghost possessed me.
I cringed with trained guilt.

Sixth Day:
He gripped me as firm as his age allowed,
whispering perversions of sacred love.
He sodomized and defiled my temple.

Seventh Day:
He rested.
I cried.

Please keep comments considerate!

I don't quite like this. You're using Christian imagery to evoke an erotic nature except... there is nothing Christian about this. Which makes it really weird. It seems like you have no idea what you're talking about, in fact, which is slightly disconcerting. Now, you can make this intensely erotic, if you choose to do this, and you can use Christianity to make it erotic. Anyone who reads John Donne knows that Christianity and erotic images pretty much go hand and hand. You don't have to make things up. So look up Christianity, in particular, Catholicism since you seem to be drawing images (Virgin Mary, etc.) particularly from Catholicism. I mean really look it up. Then I'm sure you'll make a more erotic poem. Right now, however, this poem is pretty much ridiculous from anybody who is educated about Catholicism.

I do, however, like the last stanza. Everything else pretty much needs to be scraped and revised.

ABSOLUTELY!

Snoink wrote:Please keep comments considerate!

I don't quite like this. You're using Christian imagery to evoke an erotic nature except... there is nothing Christian about this. Which makes it really weird. It seems like you have no idea what you're talking about, in fact, which is slightly disconcerting. Now, you can make this intensely erotic, if you choose to do this, and you can use Christianity to make it erotic. Anyone who reads John Donne knows that Christianity and erotic images pretty much go hand and hand. You don't have to make things up. So look up Christianity, in particular, Catholicism since you seem to be drawing images (Virgin Mary, etc.) particularly from Catholicism. I mean really look it up. Then I'm sure you'll make a more erotic poem. Right now, however, this poem is pretty much ridiculous from anybody who is educated about Catholicism.

I do, however, like the last stanza. Everything else pretty much needs to be scraped and revised.

I appreciate this but perhaps I should explain myself. I was heavily inspired by some stories I heard in person about sex abuse in the Catholic Church and from articles I've read about just how far the corruption has gone. I wanted to write a poem from the victim's perspective. I also am inspired by symbology in general and have a lot of Catholics on my Dad's side and have visited their elaborate churchs. I've independently read 90% of the Bible and many various other books about the Bible by potestants and catholics alike. Please don't tell me I don't know about Christianity. I tried to push it aesthetically with religious themes and try to appall the reader. This is my artistic style, maybe it doesn't speak to you.

EDIT: You hinted at ways to improve my poem and I'd love it if you were more precise.

Oh, boy. You did what I've been waiting on someone to do for a while.

You're going to make the Christian Writers squirm with this one.

That said, I love it. I disagree with Snoink in that you need to read up more on your religious details... There's no need in burying satire and cynicism under heaps of political correctness.

Now, There are ways to improve, of course, and that's what I came to do; I didn't come to just disagree with Snoink. Promise.

So, points:

1.) Please, if nothing else, change the first line of the poem. Any word but kinky, please.

2.) I'm not a fan of fragmented descriptions, but you do pull them off well in the piece. Try making them logical sentences, but if that doesn't work, I won't really complain.

3.) Days (stanzas) four and five are my favorite. It gets niiiice and violent just before the snap-and-break of days 6 and 7.

4.) Your build-up was fantastic. As the poem progressed, I instinctively read more rapidly per stanza, which is a wonderful sensation with the "heated" imagery you give later on.

5.) The feeling of a journal that the stanza headers give is pleasant and adds to the sensation of breathlessness towards the end. It all makes me think of the later scenes of The Haunting in Connecticut.

6.) The title, in my opinion, will drive off the readers that you really want to reach out to. Except for weirdos like Snoink. (Love you, really!) Maybe something less blatant, but still as edgy would suffice. But that's just a suggestion.

All-around:

Kudos. I liked it, and therefore clicked the 'like' button.

Keep on offending people, but not enough to make people not read. It's a mark of a good revolutionary.

Let me know if you change/update anything because I love it!

-Lumiface

I knew what you were writing about. It was just poorly executed.

Specific advice?

1. Kill the adjectives. Your poem pretty much relies on those things to get any sort of "shock" value to its readers. However, only bad poems are built on adjectives. Good poems are built on specific nouns and verbs. Use them.

2. Have some sense of order. The only stanza that really makes sense is the last one. The other ones seem out of order. Reread Genesis and then think about religious protocol. Generally, they fit in the whole Genesis theme. For instance, the second day makes sense where the first day is. After all, you start with water and light. Water of baptism... and light! That's in the first day. So it really appears random, the way you've put it. Parallelism would do wonders here. That would increase the shock value without relying on the adjectives... after all, if you paint the horrific scene correctly and make it seem like it should have been in the bible, that shows off the disillusionment sooo much better.

3. By the way, your first stanza includes not Christian but pagan themes. A bit weird. Made me wonder whether you knew what you were talking about.

4. The sixth day was random. Before then, you were talking in abstracts, and then this literal thing came in. It was weird. You should probably make it more real with every day.

It's incredibly refreshing to see something daring on here. First and foremost, allow me to thank you for that. There's no lovelorn-heartbreak-I'mnotgoodenoughforyou-you'renotgoodenoughforme-numbawkwardbehavior-nonsense.

Love the days 1-7 parallel. Is there supposed to a parallel for each individual day? Because I can see it for some of them, but others not as much.
Days: Actual told story/your poem
Day 1: Let there be light/Moonlight? That's light-like
Day 2: Separation of the waters/Sweat, that's watery-ish. ("And then there was light" comes a day too late, though)
Days 3-5: Then it's kinda fuzzy.
Day 6: Humanity created/ The priest or whatever appears in full light for the first time.
Day 7: Rest

Agreed. "Kinky" is far too much far too early. And mass media has already turned "kinky" into a fun word. There is no sinister intent in it.

I also agree that some adjectives can be thrown away. "Distorted" "mangled" "hellish".

There is a huge jump from abstract to concrete from days 4 to 5. Maybe to introduce physical forms more slowly, you could say in Day 4: "His footsteps hit creaky panels..."

Anyway, an interesting idea that you executed decently. Cool.

Thanks for all the comments/crits! I agree with some stuff and not with others. Probabaly won't change the poem though.

The days weren't meant to be a 100% rigid paralel of if the Creation myth because that would be hard to pull off while still telling the story. Kinky stays. Sorry!

I intentionally thrusted the reader from abstract in to very real "physical" descriptions around stanza 4-5 as you said sarge. I like the way it is.

Snoink, first stanza is nearly 100% Christian themed. Confessionals are where people go to confess their sins to priests. The crucifix is the cross. The mangled human sacrifice is Jesus. Virgin Mary is well, the mother of Jesus, and an important figure in Cathlocism.

All of it was to reflect personal and non personal experience in Catholic Churches. A Catholic Church is the perfect setting for a poem in my opinion because one could find beauty and another could see oppression.

Title stays too!

THANKS EVERYONE!

Whoa. Well, how could I resist reading this after seeing the title?! Anyway, you get an A+ for originality. It's an awesome idea, and it was executed decently, as sargsauce said.

The kinky confessional was lit by the moon.

This doesn't sound right because of kinky, and a confessional being lit by the moon sounds weird. I know you said you're keeping "kinky" but I really must agree that it doesn't have the impact you want it to have. Nowadays it's just a silly word to describe rough/weird sex.

Distorted demons made of
estranged shadows danced on the walls.

Work on these adjectives, or possibly eliminate them, because "distorted" and "estranged" don't really sound right.

Footsteps hitting creaky panels ringed like the hellish
cries of unborn babies climbing up from Limbo.

I think you mean "rang." And I was raised Catholic as well, and about Limbo... I don't remember it being a place that causes the babies to let out hellish cries. I think it was more a blank, lifeless suspension. No pain, but no joy either. Also, it's not unborn babies in Limbo, it's unbaptized babies. Watch that.

He gripped me as firm as his age allowed,
whispering perversions of sacred love.
He sodomized and defiled my temple.

I like this stanza but that last line, the temple bit, just feels kinda trashy, doesn't leave me with a devastating emotional impact.

Seventh Day:
He rested.
I cried.

Good way to end it.
The use of the seven days from Genesis was brilliant. I know you want to keep the title but I must emphasize that it makes this poem sound far more humorous than the actual piece suggests. "Sex toy" is such a comical phrase. But I digress. I must agree with Snoink on the times when I periodically thought you could have improved this with even stronger, more authentic erotic Catholic images. Look up Bernini's sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, or images of the martyred St. Sebastian. Renaissance Christian art is rife with vivid pseudo-erotic imagery, and perhaps you could be inspired by taking a look at some.

But overall, I enjoyed reading this. It was daring and refreshing. Good job.

I clicked on this kind of as a joke, lol.
I was looking for something to read, and I didn't really know what I was expecting from the title.
What I have to say is that, the only problem I had was with the Fourth Day stanza.

inkwell wrote:Fourth Day:
Footsteps hitting creaky panels ringed like the hellish
cries of unborn babies climbing up from Limbo.
Louder, louder, in my ears.

To me, it just seemed like everything was shorter and more direct to the point. More, fragmented, but this stanza just seemed longer than the others. When I reading it was building, and the pace was moving, but when I got to this I was set back and slowed down. Then it resumed after this was done. I don't know if it's just because it seemed longer, or something, or if it's just me, but that's really all I have to point out. Maybe shorten it down a bit, somehow?

inkwell wrote:The Virgin Mary glared at me with a mother's stare.

and...

inkwell wrote:He gripped me as firm as his age allowed

and...

inkwell wrote:Seventh Day:
He rested.
I cried.

... were my absolute favorite lines of the poem! Guten job!

The subject matter you are attempting to deal with here is very interesting to me and something I'm very passionate about. Dealing with the fall out of abuse in the Catholic Church has shaken so many people where I am from in Ireland to their very core, and it's interesting to see writers try and make sense of such a difficult topic. Having said that, if you're going to tackle themes like sex, rape and religion I think you need to both be delicate, and also really explore them in a way that I think is lacking in this piece.

First of all, I would say the word "kinky" is completely inappropriate - it's abrasiveness doesn't capture the reader so much as seem jarring. I think this is a subject that would be much better approached with a tenderness towards the victim, rather than inviting the reader to be "shocked" at the juxtaposition of sex and church (which is entirely unshocking). I like the second line, the mangled body as a sacrifice but it's really overshadowed by "kinky" glaring from the line above. However, as you say, "Kinky stays! Sorry!" so I guess that's falling on deaf ears.

The other main problem for me, as has also been pointed out is the change from abstract to concrete. The words "defiled my temple" as well seem staid to me, a body as a temple is hardly a new or arresting image. I think if you really want to stick with moving from abstract to concrete, you need to do so with more force and conviction. Maybe explore the idea of the abuser as having a weak body (you mention old age) yet it's the emotional strength he holds that is so incredibly dangerous? For me that's a very interesting aspect, and it's touched upon but left too soon, I think.

The religious imagery - the hellish cries of unborn babies in Limbo etc. feels over slightly done (also! do "unborn babies" scream from Limbo? I am in no way religious so not exactly an authority but surely it is unbaptised babies?). I think Snoink suggested less adjectives throughout the poem and I agree with that - there is so much complexity here, it doesn't need too much embellishment. It's good to have a clear, formal structure, to keep the poem penned in in a sense, but this effect is tarnished by the overly elaborate descriptions.

Anyway, I am intruiged to read a poem trying to explore these issues but I think it could do with revising - maybe coming at it from a slightly different angle, really trying to understand from the victim's perspective and being open minded about some of the suggestions people have given!

Oh dear.

I'll be blunt to start; I hate the title. There's nothing wrong with throwing political correction out the window, but saying 'the crucifix is a sex toy' is obviously, and it seems inconsiderately, demeaning to the christian religion. I would say the same if it were a reference to any religion, that linking the religious symbol to something with such a perverse function is beyond where one should draw the line.

On the positive, I loved the structure of this. I wasn't overly keen on having 'the first day,' 'the second day,' e.c.t at the start of each stanza, but I can't really see a way around it, and it's not a huge deal. Splitting the poem into seven for the seven days of creation is quite smart.

I also liked how the stanzas intensified with each one. It kind of felt like I was being dragged deeper into it step by step, and it's been done really well.

'I cringed with trained guilt,' was one of many lines I like, because it keeps the traditional practices of the church knitted into the poem all the way through. Also 'unborn babies climbing up from limbo.' This line is so sinister it made me feel uncomfortable, which works really well for the piece.

Nitpick: 'Ringed.' I don't know if that is a word, I would use 'rung,' but maybe that's a difference between the englishes.

I would also suggest using another word instead of 'my temple.' The temple on the head came to mind before I realised the reference of the body being the temple.

I do admire the bluntness and shock of the title, but not the offensive nature. Even if you are so inclined against changing it for this piece, you should at least keep that point in mind for the future.

Nicely written.

10/10.

Beautiful.

You've adopted the exact kind of style I love.

10/10 as said above me.

Wow. I'm sure you spent a while writing this but I loved it. It's like the bible in a personal viewers eyes.

Keep writing!

Uh... I don't know what to say.
I don't like the title much.

Honestly, when I read this, I had to read it over and over again. I just had to read between the lines, but I can't seem to do it. I don't know what I'm reading about. HAHA. I don't know what those meant, but I felt odd. Phew. I can't explain it better than that.

Then I had to read the title again. 'So,' I thought to myself, 'this poem had to be something about this.'

You have a style, and it seems pretty good, but I don't like the theme at all. Sorry to say that. Don't worry, reviews here are relative. XD

-KAT <3