You never forget
The words of
A vagrant prophet
A junkie messiah
Anointed in the
Castoffs of the
World, spiced
By the rancid
Odor of
Rotting teeth
No
You never forget
Never mind
That he’s deranged
Consumed by
A hunger
Nothing here
In reality
Can provide
In hoarse words
He assaults your ears
Spitting preacher’s words
From a waste bin pulpit
“The world opens
And shopping
Carts fall in,
Then you
Will know
The age of
Garbage has
Come
The rise of the Refused.”
Powerful words
Even when they
Mean nothing
For a mere coin
More such street
Wisdom can be
Bought
For a bottle of
Cheap liquor
An Apocalypse
Is yours
Just remember
The given words
Are yours alone
For this destitute
Joshua leaves
All his memories
At the bottom
Of empty bottles
Trying to free
Himself of the demon,
God.
PS – If you enjoyed reading this, if this touched you in anyway. Please let me know. This is one of (many) poems I am considering for submission. I’d like some feedback and critique though, as I can’t get it anywhere else. So, if you have a moment please leave a comment with your thoughts. Thank you.
I like it very much. Very creative. Wisdom can be bought?
I like this one “For a bottle of Cheap liquor An Apocalypse Is yours”. Very true about life.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I hope you look around and can find some of my other work as enjoyable.
On first reading I hadn’t realized this was you speaking. On first reading I was imagining you posting something you had read during the unfolding of the Japanese disaster–“the world opens and shopping carts fall in.” I immediately liked the shape of phrases, disliked the lack of punctuation and insistent capitol letters. I would prefer sentences punctuated and capitalized normally, while maintaining the phrase-determined shape. I think it less coy, more naturally musical.
That said, as a whole the poem is very good and economically conveys a wonderful juxtaposition of meanings and visual settings. It succeeds in giving new impetus to the synonym for ‘garbage’: ‘refuse’–a theme of real merit. Really you demonstrate a lot of subtlety, both of philosophy and wordcraft.
For me the visions of garbage in Japan–whole towns as geographies of heaped debris–overran this poem’s theme of an individual as refused refuse, and the writer’s wonder that so much cogently expressed wisdom could be passed along by a person flooded by exclusion. It’s a question of whether one reader’s mind can hold such divergence of scale on March 14, 2011.
Improving a poem this good is tricky. The slightest alteration alters everything else, at least stanza by stanza. I think “…even when they mean nothing…” may be extraneous. I think “An apocalypse is yours” is confusing and speaks to the confusion probability you risk by ignoring periods. Which sentence does it belong to, or is it its own sentence? The thought that follows it says much the same thing and demonstrates it as well, so I think you might get rid of it altogether. The whole paragraph/stanza beginning “Powerful…” is somehow in the way. How much difference does it make if you delete it? Can the last stanza carry some of its intentions?
Perhaps the ‘Joshua’ image conflicts with ‘Moses’ in the title, though I realize you mean to generalize the person’s status as a kind of prophet without drawing close parallels. (Nice photo to go with.) Those names are highly loaded, so take it easy. I’d keep the Joshua and drop the Moses, I think.
The very admirable last stanza needs a bit more strengthening, especially the uniqueness of this prophesy to you alone, an experience that “An apocalypse is yours” doesn’t begin to express. I think you’re within a few words of having that last statement just right in the last stanza.
I would get rid of the last comma, the isolation of the capitalized ‘God’ gets the notion across without the self-consciousness of the comma. As in film, the minute the reader/viewer becomes aware of the machinations that made the art experience, separation creeps into the experience. Continue striving to make it flow effortlessly. If, within a reasonable amount of time and tinkering the effect remains the same, send it on for publication. It’s pretty good already.
Patty, I’m not ignoring your comment I just need to take some time and incorporate what you said with what I want the poem to say and then make the changes that come out of that process.
Thank you so much for your critique.