...back on solid ground...
...some poems aren’t literary works…they’re just small bouts of truth…
You wont read another poem from me
about God or Jesus,
or prophets or psalms;
those were someone else’s myths, not mine.
I don’t need divine intervention
to tell me to who I am
or where I came from
or where I will go when I’m gone.
No, I surely don’t need
that dead weight,
that excursion from truth
weighing down a poem.
You wont climb into my verses again.
Not a word about how I swore on my grave
with the conviction of Christ
that God meant you for me.
Those beliefs are stored in
someone else’s imagination
and my poems don’t even know
who that poet is or how she got lost in you.
No, I surely don’t need
some foolish transgressions
and lapses in judgment
to ruin a perfectly good poem.
saffronsound 
Very bold!
Very strong start — I got lost a little on “to tell me to who I am” — didn’t quite get this with the second “to” (if really meant there then “who” becomes “whom”)
If the second stanza started with the strong meter of the first (such as “You won’t climb into my words again”) I think that would be more compelling. Nonetheless I enjoyed this as a poem.
(Minor typo at start: “wont”)
wow….this poem sure says alot; art is such an expression of our hearts.
hey zum…appreciate your editing…this is still really a bit of a dud and should have been left in the notebook pages it came from…but i guess i just have to embrace the fact i am a hasty poster who does a whole lot of public editing…haha…
this poem came from an exploration of the woeful limits of the word “love”. i simply can’t get over how our language is so limited that we use the same word for such significant and impacting relationships…a mother’s fierce protective desire of a baby, the desire and commitment of a couple, and the absolute joyous celebration of a heart that truly knows god. can there really be just one word (with adjectives tacked on in front) to describe the enormity of this emotion? and if it is the same word, the same thing…this one big thing called love, then what happens when one love relationship breaks? do they all get crushed? scatter like beads on a candy necklace once the string is chewed through? it often seems to go this way; when it blows apart in one area of our lives, we fail to keep it intact in another. what if it were different words? could it then be protected?
well…the poem doesn’t really say any of the above…though it tries to reflect the aftermath of a big blowing apart….complete with lots of collateral damage…it sounds tough but it’s really the sad, half-alive limping forwards of a love that wasn’t shielded or fully understood…so many parts blown off of it that it is a whole lot lighter…
well then…
Those are great thougths and definitely worth a poem or essay — or several.
I think the most important level a poet must get to is knowing when a poem is finished — knowing whether to work and work at a poem — maybe over the course of weeks or months — but also know when a poem is done and not destroy it by overdoing it. I think it is a little easier for poets that are using rhymes/meters as they have structure that they can concentrate on. Much harder for a free-verse poet.
Stravinksy once said ““My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles”
For a free verse poet, there is less freedom then with someone that has some very strict rules and requirements. So although easier to express oneself in free verse, harder to create an excellent poem.
such a great and thought-provoking comment! thanks for that.
I found this interesting, Robert Frost, shares this same view as Stravinksy (which I totally agree with.)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-frost
incredible poem. i wouldn’t change anything about it. one thing with faith is that we don’t ever really know when we’re coming or going until we’re there already or left it all behind. xx
i’ve never understood how people can be apathetic or dis-interested…for me, in matters of heart and soul and spirit there is always combustion…lol…oh, to be moderate….