Designed to shock

By jennifer

Wed, 14 May 2008
  • 4132 reads
13 comments
 

Designed to shock (14th May 2008, 10.12pm)

I am the voice that whispers in the ears
of the miscreants that parents fear…
Listen,
I know which ones
are easiest to prey upon;
I can point out vulnerability
to the wrong,
the weakened,
turn on the turned on
who seek redemption for their pasts
by furthering the circle;
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
of our kind; humanity
is lost on me;
I live within the houses of the holy ones,
the wholly disenchanted ones,
to whom love is an unfamiliar god
and security is a type of guard;
I am the whispers on the street;
I know where to find fresh meat;
I know how to meet and charm,
a friendly hand on an unfriendly arm;
I am the undercurrent,
the predator with talent,
the persuader of the easily persuaded,
the crusader who once masqueraded
as your saviour;
but you can’t save the chosen from me
and you can’t protect your loved ones, you see,
you can’t trust that the strangers on the street
haven’t been listening to me
just like you have, lately:
your eyes have here paraded…
have I held you captivated?

Certificate 18
Something for the Weekend (May 2008)
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by jennifer on
Well?

 

Submitted by jennifer on
Well?

 

Submitted by jennifer on
Well?

 

Submitted by onemorething on
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! :)

 

Submitted by jennifer on
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!

 

Submitted by onemorething on
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'.

 

Submitted by jennifer on
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?

 

Submitted by animan on
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?

 

Submitted by jennifer on
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?

 

Submitted by tcook on
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.

Submitted by jennifer on
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!

 

Submitted by animan on
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?

 

Submitted by jennifer on
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!