Of Two Minds - edit3

[alonso ramoran]

Of Two Minds


I don’t believe some evil other hand
built those dark Monticello passages
which then permitted Thomas Jefferson
to penetrate slave quarters secretly. I'm still unsure about "penetrate". Maybe the following rewrite could work: "to abscond to its slave quarters." If not, the original line works fine. If you want to go the extra mile, you could write "to visit its slave quarters in secret" and "secret" could either be kept, swapped with "confidence" or some other synonym, or perhaps even an image that would convey Jefferson's secrecy.
No, he designed, he utilized and knew
about them but forgot for hours and days–
much as that gifted polymath believed
his god an immanent but unconcerned
endowing, blind creator of his world– "blind" is a nice choice here. It makes me think of some sort of demiurge, which I think highlights the irony of the blind worshipping the blind. This wasn't conveyed before b/c "cool" along with the other descriptors only suggested this god is a calculating god whose creation is an intentional result of his precise calculations.
most days, and while he wrote of human rights.
But other times he trembled to reflect
with nightly mounting dread, that God is just.

edit1;

I don’t believe some evil other hand
built those dark Monticello passages
which then permitted Thomas Jefferson
to visit its slave quarters secretly.
No, he designed and utilized, and knew
about them but forgot for hours and days–
much as that gifted polymath believed
his god an immanent but unconcerned
endowing, cool creator of his world–
most days, and while he wrote of human rights.
But other times he trembled to reflect
with nightly mounting dread that God is just.

original version;

I don’t believe some evil other hand
built those dark Monticello passages
which then permitted Thomas Jefferson
to visit its slave quarters secretly.
No, he designed and utilized, and knew...
but not, perhaps, each hour of each day.

Just as that gifted polymath believed
his god an immanent but unconcerned
endowing, cool, impersonal Creator–
most days, and while he wrote of human rights.
But other times he trembled when he thought
with yearly mounting dread that God is just.