HOMEWORK FOR MONDAY:  Using the “Framework for Judging,” pp. 11-12 of Burroway, and the suggestions on the syllabus under “Guidelines for Participating in Peer Critique,” comment on both of these poems as thoroughly, trenchantly, and diplomatically as you can.  Note that you don’t have to answer ALL the questions I’ve given you – that’d be busywork – answer them in your head and use them to figure out when the piece is doing something particularly strong or weak.

Impartial GOD

They say... the truth will set you free... but...

The truth changes,...
can be relative,
depends on time,
can't always be
discovered and
that is the mystery
of it all. What seems
to really set us free is
our searching for it -
adapting our souls to
being flexible, open minded,
compassionate, seekers of truth,
truth that might be multi-sided.

Who can know the truth but one who stands objectively without participating in it?

Is there even such a thing?

If you want to go places, then go... Let the wind 
chase you, a follow the sun kind of thing.

The Day He Really Died

He was looking for a grave
but it was hard, possibilities.
Weighing coffee and family.

He was looking for a gun
that wouldn't hurt, wouldn't
injure anyone but himself.

He looked for ways, many days,
months, years, all the way down 
the hole until Alice made no sense.

Drugged and drudged, scorned for
the apathy he needed to deal with
just a day, he made this deal, this

big ol rotten deal with the devil
that he'd never go any way but
his own as long as life was short.

Death was long, the devil lies,
the day of the revolving doors,
he knew it was the last of him.

Can you believe he was thankful?

Thankful for me? Thankful for
the rest of his family or the songs
or books he'd not yet written?

I wonder if he thought of me
when he knew the end had come.
Got in the car to emergency. Hum.

He denied the world much,
pretending life just his crutch,
I feel no mercy in his dead arms. 
<div style="font-size:12px;"><hr /><p>Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on unofficial pages of California State University, Dominguez Hills faculty, staff or students are strictly those of the page authors. The content of these pages has not been reviewed or approved by California State University, Dominguez Hills.</font></p></div>