Poetry Forum

Forum Home » High Critique » So, This is Christmas

For poets who want unrestricted constructive criticism. This is NOT a vanity workshop. If you do not want your poem seriously critiqued, do not post here. Constructive criticism only. PLEASE Only Post One Poem a Day!!!

12/23/2016 9:15:41 AM Terry Robinson Posts: 49	I Slip my hand into yours and let me walk with you. Let the vision of Christmas whisper across your face. Let me see the last minute presents wrapped around the Christmas tree and watch the children laying in bed, wishing that Christmas morning had already won the race over sleep. When packages and torn paper shall lay across a floor full of excited shrieks and hugs and kisses. Of Christmas dinners around a table full of toasts and paper hats, and belts let out a notch or two. And watch the after dinner walks and kids racing new bikes through the snow while the old folks snooze, waking only for the Queen's speech and to check what's been laid out for tea. II Now, slip your hand in Mine and walk with Me. Let the vision of Christmas show its tally across My face. Let My eye be your guide to a world I was born to die for on this day. To show you man's inhumanities. See the beggar sitting in the snow, whose face hangs with cold like the pall to a coffin. The infant, trembling in his cot, his body beaten and his mouth unfed. His days short lived and unforgiving. Watch how the poor get tormented with hand-me-down food banks and coloured promises. See a blind - eyed, ear-covered close - mouthed divided mankind watch the poor go hungry, the aggressor get angry and the perpetrator remain blameless. All on this day of days.
	• permalink • reply with quote
12/30/2016 12:23:33 PM Doug Vinson Posts: 102	Hi Terry. Not much criticism from me, here - excellent poem. Just one tiny thing - at the very beginning, the "I" for "Part 1" rather makes it look like the first sentence is, "I slip my hand into yours and let me walk with you." That's how I read it, anyway. Maybe just some different formatting - a double-space after that "I" or something else to set it more apart from the text - would prevent this. I do see that you capitalized the "S" in "Slip," so I can hardly be critical at all, and then later there is the "II" for the second part; all is certainly clear at that point. Being American, I love the part about the old folks snoozing and "waking only for the Queen's speech and to check what's been laid out for tea." It's endearing, but not immediately familiar to us who live without those customs - it adds interest. I am not religious, per se, but in the second part, "a world I was born to die for on this day," still affected me - that is a profound sentiment. To what extent are we really "our brother's keeper"? Your poem shows the huge differences that exist between many of our lives, and a major disconnect that is part of the human condition. Very well done!
	• permalink • reply with quote
12/31/2016 1:25:47 PM Terry Robinson Posts: 49	Douglas, thanks for the feed back. I didn't mean the thumbs down and it wouldn't allow me to reverse it
	• permalink • reply with quote