Collective Guilt (Me and The Black Cat) EDIT 1.02: Kolemath, A. R., River Notch.

[QDeathstar]

Edit 1:

Collective Guilt (Me and The Black Cat)

We are good like God.
Punishing the faithful with purpose
like Satan.

We have rights like King.
Dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.

We give hope like Jesus.
Keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson.

We are free like Gandhi.
To defend the unspoken minority
like old Mao.

We still live like Buddha.
Awaiting our rebirth
like lost fools.


OG

Me and The Black Cat (Still wise, free, and safe in our remains)

We are good, like God
unique with a special purpose
like Satan.

We have rights, like King
dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.

We are free, like Gandhi
to rage against the bourgeoisie
like old Mao.

We give hope, like Jesus
keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson.

We still live, like Buddha
waiting for our rebirth
like a fool.

[kolemath]

Hey, PDS.  Great work with contrast in this one. I like the use of the object pronoun in the title too. My only issue with reading is the comma placement. Shouldn't the comma come after the first comparison? 'we are good like god," ? that or the comparison should be fully parenthetical: 'we are good, like god," ? that or cut the commas?

a few other observations below...

Me and The Black Cat (Still wise, free, and safe in our remains)

We are good, like God
unique with a special purpose does 'unique' equate to goodness?
like Satan. is satan good? might 'righteous' be better as followers of may consider him so. plus it's more of a religious word.

We have rights, like King
dreaming up righteous mandates this comparison is  spot on, both parties believing in their own 'righteous mandates' (and have the right to do so)
like the Klan.

We are free, like Gandhi 
to rage against the bourgeoisie did Gandhi rage?
like old Mao.

We give hope, like Jesus
keeping faith in cult personalities this comparison works well too...this idea of 'keeping faith' would work will with the satan/god verse too
like Manson.

We still live, like Buddha cut 'still' ?
waiting for our rebirth
like a fool. strong closing

I love poems with ambiguity! Just make sure each case of ambiguity fits? -Kole

[Magpie]

Hi P,

This has been well thought out and structured and achieves its purpose very well. I've left some comments below.

Me and The Black Cat (Still wise, free, and safe in our remains) -- The title sets this up nicely whilst being intriguing at the same. It has awkwardness about it —which is good— because it breaks the rule of placing yourself in a list. As many will see 'The Black Cat' as a symbol for either the devil or evil then this method works well. Not sure about the text in parentheses, it feels like it should be at the end of the poem as a conclusion. Whereas now it seems like a statement and the poem is a justification of the statement. To be honest, I don't think it's needed at all.

We are good, like God
unique with a special purpose
like Satan.  -- This is probably the only stanza that doesn't work for me. If you switch it round, which is the way that you've set the whole thing up to be able to do, then it reads awkwardly.

We are good, like Satan
unique with a special purpose
like God.  --  Who is it that believes Satan is good. Finding a quality or attribute that God and Satan share is not easy. Something like 'honourable' or 'true to our word', in the sense that if you make a deal with the devil he won't let you down.

We have rights, like King -- King is such a common word, both for surnames and other uses, that some may not know who this is. In every other way it is perfect, both beginning with the Klan obsessed letter K and both closely related to family or brotherhood -- Klan - Clan  and King - Kin
dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.

We are free, like Gandhi
to rage against the bourgeoisie
like old Mao.

We give hope, like Jesus
keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson.

We still live, like Buddha
waiting for our rebirth
like a fool.

Ooopss, I've just noticed that this is in Mild Critique and I've probably said way too much already so I better stop. I did have a few other points to make but on the whole I think that this is a well worked out concept that just needs a couple of tweaks here and there.

Cheers for the read,

Mark

[Joseph Didis]

Really neat poem, well thought through and nice format, nice job!

Me and The Black Cat (Still wise, free, and safe in our remains)

We are good, like God    I agree that good might not be the best word choice for Satan, not sure if God is an angel per se, otherwise that might be a common denominator that captures the meaning of good.
unique with a special purpose    I would stick with plural form, we have unique and special purposes.
like Satan.

We have rights, like King     I did not get the Marin Luther King reference first time around, I read it as any king, I do not think that is a problem though, kings work equally well in this stanza, and follows from God->King..It shows the characters are interchangeable.
dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.

We are free, like Gandhi
to rage against the bourgeoisie
like old Mao.    I am not sure why you use old for Mao but not any other character. you could probably cut it.

We give hope, like Jesus
keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson.   

We still live, like Buddha
waiting for our rebirth
like a fool.    This is a really powerful ending stanza. I am not sure about switching to singular though.

I think that since the poem is written in a way that the characters are interchangeable, commas around each character might make it clearer that they are subordinate clauses.

I really enjoyed the read, thank you for sharing the poem!

[Magpie]

It's me again. I was just reading the latest critique and then read through your poem again and noticed something that I had to mention because it's excellent.

We give hope, like Jesus
keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson.

In this stanza—and I presume it's intentional— Charles Manson is so much the perfect choice because of that surname...

Manson - Son of Man - Jesus Christ

It makes me want to go through the whole poem again very carefully to see if there are any other gems like this.

Cheers, good work 

Addition - just thought that by using the method you used in the above stanza you could possibly replace Satan with Lucifer in the first and get a similar effect.
Lucifer ultimately means bringer of light which is the reason why the planet Venus used to be (and sometimes still is) called Lucifer when it appears as the morning star because it rises just before the sun and appears to bring the light. 'Morning Star' was sometimes confused with and called 'Daystar' which is another name for the sun which is ultimately another name for Jesus. Therefore at times in older versions of the new testament Jesus was referred to as Lucifer. Sorry it's all a bit long winded but I thought I should say.

[Achebe]

I think kolemath did a good job of pointing out the issues in the pome. I had exactly the same reservations. The Gandhi bit grates, in fact, because at no point did he 'rage against the bourgeois', and so the contrast between him and Mao doesn't work. They had nothing in common apart from being Asians leaders, having black hair, and not dying in Calgary, for instance.

[QDeathstar]

mmaybe I should work on that Calgary angle,

We are free, like Ghandhi
to never visit Calgary
like old Mao.

^_^


I'm not sure why I settled in rage. I had something to say there, but that wasn't it.

[Achebe]

I cringe at my typos

[71degrees]

Not often one sees JC and Manson in the same breath.

Why does Buddha get shortchanged? He and only a fool. All the rest of them get equal billing.

Teeter-totter poems like this are a tough sell, I think. You are presupposing one agrees w/your logic. Who says God is good? you? And please, I don't mean this in a mean way but think about it. By putting the poem into first person plural, you are making the assumption that the reader is part of the POV.

Also, based on the title, am I to assume you are the opposite of the Black Cat? Not sure I'm thinking this way at the beginning of the poem b/c I don't know what the poem is about but when I get to the end and look back, there it is.

All this being said, I like your attempt to take chances here. The entities you have chosen to make your cases are terrific. I think this is a poem worth working on.

[billy]

i don't think ghandi raged at anything apart from a too mild curry. i found like god/like jesus to be too close to use as a 2nd example. i have no idea why you and the black cat [not you ] the [we] the italicized tack on didn't do anything for me. from the poem i get a sense of choice, we can do what we wish and in many ways it can be argued to be as valid as it's opposites. one mans meat and all that. if it does nothing else; it makes the reader think about what is written. did i get it? no. do i have to get it? no

Me and The Black Cat (Still wise, free, and safe in our remains)

We are good, like God
unique with a special purpose
like Satan.

We have rights, like King
dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.

We are free, like Gandhi
to rage against the bourgeoisie
like old Mao.

We give hope, like Jesus
keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson.

We still live, like Buddha
waiting for our rebirth
like a fool.

[RiverNotch]

Me and The Black Cat (Still wise, free, and safe in our remains) In our remains? Hmm.....this isn't gonna be one of those great big rather aimless angst fests we teens often have, is it? But regardless, I do think this is a fair title -- and a fair subtitle, too, sweeter in taste as a subtitle rather than an (awkward) ending.

We are good, like God Yeah, the commas are the main source of annoyance for me here -- blocks to the fluidity of thought that just feel out of place. Moving the comma to the end, removing commas, heck, even removing all punctuation/sentence-start-capitalization would probably be better than your current set-up.
unique with a special purpose
like Satan. Is Satan good? Good question --- but then, what do you mean by good? Doesn't the fact that the speaker here deals with Satan as being "unique with a special purpose" give him, in this God-created world, inherent goodness -- you know, a la my rough knowledge of theology/Milton? No qualms with the word choice here; as much as Lucifer would feel kinda better, my later point on the Jewish God would make Satan the right choice, I think.

We have rights, like King Minor qualm with the word choice here: it's reallly easy to miss Martin Luther King here. I missed it too, until I read a few of the crits -- and though it works kind of well as just a generic king, it's not really well enough. And on the theme, although this is perhaps because I live somewhere where race doesn't seem to be that much of an issue: it's kind of weird to put the struggles of Martin Luther King over, well, everyone else below.
Although in retrospect, putting a king right below God kind of makes sense ---- until the Jesus bit below, that is.
dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.

We are free, like Gandhi
to rage against the bourgeoisie Did Gandhi ever "rage"? I don't really argue with the thought choice behind rage, just the word choice -- feels too strong. With "bourgeoisie", though --- and this is an honest question, as I don't know as much about those struggles in India --- did Gandhi's message ever attempt to bring down the bourgeoisie, in one sense the ones ruling the proletariat, yet in another equally popular sense simply the middle class? Didn't he just want to, er, kick out the Brits, or at least just the Brits in power?
like old Mao.

We give hope, like Jesus Is Jesus redundant? Well, yes and no, yes in that he is God, no in that he is the Son of God, and I think in this poem the second sense prevails: God in this poem is simply the hypostasis that is the Father, ie the Jewish God. But I would rather see this as being above the two stanzas right above it, if only because it makes for a better progression, at least socially (start with the Jewish God, then with the Christian God, then with Gandhi's struggles in the 40s, then with King's struggles in the 60s, then with Buddha for the coda) -- thematically, yeah, "good, rights, free, hope" runs about right.
keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson. God/King, Mao/Manson, Satan/Klan, consistently trisyllabic ends, and then that whole "Son of Man/Manson" thing --- dammit, as much as I'm kinda on the fence about all the social/political arrangements of this piece, your word connections are just perfect.

We still live, like Buddha
waiting for our rebirth
like a fool. Although it's kinda weird that Buddha's suddenly here, you justify it well enough with Gandhi, and yeah, this is a good end, to a very intellectually (and, with a bit of work on my part, spiritually) titillating poem. Lovely.

[QDeathstar]

Thanks everyone for the comments. I didn't comment on them, but i did read them and i appreciate it. I tried to fix some of the issues with the poem. Thanks again.

Collective Guilt (Me and The Black Cat)

We are good like God.
Punishing the faithful with purpose
like Satan.

We have rights like King.
Dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.

We give hope like Jesus.
Keeping faith in cult personalities
like Manson.

We are free like Gandhi.
To defend the unspoken minority
like old Mao.

We still live like Buddha.
Awaiting our rebirth
like lost fools.

[QDeathstar]

I thought maybe editing the name would address some of river notches thoughts.

[QDeathstar]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blac...ort_story)

[Achebe]

The whole point of Siddharta Gautama's quest was to escape the cycle of rebirth, so the last bit doesn't work

[ellajam]

The whole point of Siddharta Gautama's quest was to escape the cycle of rebirth, so the last bit doesn't work

Yes, so it fits the poem, each stanza a misled following. No?

[QDeathstar]

the fool does not escape his rebirth. And mao didn't defend the minority either.

[Achebe]

The whole point of Siddharta Gautama's quest was to escape the cycle of rebirth, so the last bit doesn't work

Yes, so it fits the poem, each stanza a misled following. No?

Yes, it does. I misread it. Thanks.

---

the fool does not escape his rebirth. And mao didn't defend the minority either.

Yup....I misread it.

[vagabond]

Collective Guilt (Me and The Black Cat)

We are good like God.
Punishing the faithful with purpose       do you mean "on purpose" or "by giving them purpose" ?maybe write "with a sense of purpose"..
like Satan.

We have rights like King.
Dreaming up righteous mandates
like the Klan.                                                           king didn´t dream up righteous mandates like the klan. but this is just my view, i fail to accept putting these movements on the same level.

We give hope like Jesus.                              
Keeping faith in cult personalities    
like Manson.                                                    hmm, i do like this stanza, but manson... it´s  not faith but fear. like some  god that could strike whenever he wants.
maybe change the first line and write "we believe in" or " we hope for jesus" and in the second line "praying to cult personalities", then i could  follow the turn to manson.

We are free like Gandhi.
To defend the unspoken minority
like old Mao.                                                    isn´t it more like an unspoken majority gandhi defended?
it would be cool if you could come up with some allusion to prisons that may or may not be real.. but communism just doesn´t do it for me.


We still live like Buddha.
Awaiting our rebirth
like lost fools.                        i try to read this in the light of the poem´s title. so i get to " just accept you´re guilty". no i am not sure if you meant it that way, but this is why i like this poem.

[QDeathstar]

Thank you vagabond, I agree the second to last stanza still needs a little modification, still working on it, haven't found it yet. I think maybe for the first stanza i may drop "with purpose" as at first it was "unique with a purpose" but it didn't quite work either. I like this poem... which is why i decided to give it a bump... get something going on it.

Thank you for your thoughts.