Designed to shock

Well?

Well?

Well?

This is excellent. I like the darkness of it. Some very good lines. For example: 'it spins and lasts and breeds; it’s me that feeds upon the bullies, the bullied, slips a thought into the minds of the misused, the abused'. Also really liked, 'you can’t trust that the strangers on the street haven’t been listening to me just like you have, lately:'. I like the word play.

A few things - I understand the first couple of lines, but they read a bit oddly. Equally, I don't like the last two lines, I'm not even sure that 'your eyes have here paraded' makes much sense to me as a line. I would also cut the second 'whisper'. Not sure about 'the crusader who masqueraded as your saviour' either. It just needs a good edit, in my opinion. And it is merely my opinion! I hope it was ok to give it! :)

Oh thank you, what a lovely long analysis - great! Yes, editing is my greatest problem - I tend to just write, let the words flow and then leave them, unable to rejig things; it's a flaw. Writing is so immediate and emotional for me - literally just spewed this out in five minutes! Your feedback is wonderful because it directs me towards editing and therefore improving as a writer.

I welcome comments and criticisms - I can take it, bring it on!

I would also like to point out that my computer froze and I only meant to appear one times demanding and not three!

I did wonder about that - I thought either your computer had frozen or you'd had one too many sherries. Ha ha. Oh well, at least the commenting business was taken in good stead. I often cringe as I click 'send'.

Ha! I get up at 5.30am on weekdays so sherries are not the best plan of an evening! I would argue that surely the whole point of sharing writing on a site such as this is to encourage debate, criticism and further our writing skills through the input of other writers, rather like a huge creative writing group. I think it's a shame that more people do not comment (and I am guilty of this) - I think it is often daunting to dare to 'dissect' another's 'fragment of soul' (ha!) but we need to make a pact not to get offended since, as you point out, comments are only opinions, after all!

If only the site would send an automatic email to us when people comment so we can get more feedback - Tony, are you picking up this? Or would it be too massive to handle?

my eyes have here paraded …
you have held me captivated,
but I don't know that I know
what you mean to say here,
I fear.
Is this about religion?
Is it about the spirit of evil?
Sorry, I am struggling here.
Am I being thick?
Is there an obvious message here that
is managing to side-step me completely?

The trouble is I do not know;
I just let the poetry flow
out of mind, through hands to page,
my head knows what I mean to say!
The spirit of evil, the subconscience;
the what that makes people do things to children;
the dichotomy of good and evil
found in every single one of us?
Is it human, or is it just part of
everything in the universe?
These are the things I struggled with
when this poem came to live
In my head; I had to get it out, quick!
What do you think?
Is the ambiguity an issue, or does
it help the poem read as it is meant to:
confusingly?

jennifer - I am picking this up and it's something we would like to do. At present Drupal (the system in which this site is built) does not allow us to do this safely - it would leave us open to predators who wished to use us for spam purposes. However, we are working on a solution and I hope that it won't be too long in coming.

Oh heavens, it's all so complicated - yes, keep those horrible spammers out! Thank you for the reply, it would be a really great addition to the site and encourage more commenting, I believe!

my eyes have here paraded …
you have held me captivated,
however, though I now start to see
the which and the what and the why
that you want your poem to be,
in short, I think,
not so much the working of the mind
as of the psyche, of the subconscious mind,
working to its own laws and rules,
which is fine, of course,
I am struggling with the idea,
though I like it,
of a subconscience (is it something
that exists beneath the moral faculty?),
and with the idea that this poem is ambiguous
(to me it is more 'multiguous').
'Multiguity' that is not a prompt of confusion
but of clarification
would satisfy the logos in me,
But maybe that's the problem,
the classic problem that
I'm trying to apply logos
to psyche - foolish of me?

Poetry is open to interpretation
Individuals read things differently
If I leave my poetry wide and open
There are more things for more people to see
Read with your own agenda
Shackle yourself to your bias
Understand on multiguous levels
In the Multiguity I revel
How I love to play with words
And appreciate responses also in verse!