You mean "wandered". Like, "I wandered lonely as a cloud".

Paradoxes are overrated. What's more, there are no real paradoxes in life, just people who are surprised when the cliches they live their lives by don't hold up. My favorite part of this is, "does why explains what?" Yes, it do.

"So beautiful, that baffled moon Who watched my gentle hands - quiet" "Like lazy flies, a drunken waltz A crooked hem, a button gone And in the heavy candle glow I stumble" These are good.

Good, except this is probably the sixth poem called "Writer's Block" on this site. You're obviously not blocked, just need to focus each of these stanzas, perhaps, into a solid poem.

The good Islam's always 'en vogue' With shoe bombs made of only brogues. You keep your Alberts, bushkins fine: Allah just likes the brogueish kind.

"Bower" is a bad word choice. I think this is one of the few times where wild indentation helps the poem. Good one.

What's with all the ...? Or is that braille?

You get better and better.

How Dovina. Sorry I didn't comment earlier. I simply can't think of what else to say.

I bearded my negro with a breast, And entered him in a beauty contest, But the boobies were pale, And looked wrong on a male, He went down a storm in the Mid West! I bearded my Jesus in the Koran, And bade him march on Xian, But the city in China, Gave our Negro a shiner, Thereby abandoning our rapprochement!

clever. + true.

A thought-provoking treatment of a sensitive issue. Well done!

A thoughtful and well considered piece. Well done!

Genesis 17:12 Every male baby will be circumcised when he is eight days old, generation after generation--this includes house-born slaves and slaves bought from outsiders who are not blood kin. Genesis 17:23 Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all his servants, whether houseborn or purchased--every male in his household--and circumcised them, cutting off their foreskins that very day, just as God had told him. Genesis 17:24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised. Genesis 17:25 His son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised. Genesis 17:26 Abraham and Ishmael were circumcised the same day Genesis 21:4 When his son was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded. Genesis 34:15 The only condition on which we can talk business is if all your men become circumcised like us. Genesis 34:22 But these men will only accept our invitation to live with us and become one big family on one condition, that all our males become circumcised just as they themselves are. Genesis 34:24 Everyone who was anyone in the city agreed with Hamor and his son, Shechem; every male was circumcised. Exodus 12:48 If an immigrant is staying with you and wants to keep the Passover to GOD, every male in his family must be circumcised, then he can participate in the Meal--he will then be treated as a native son. But no uncircumcised person can eat it. Joshua 5:3 So Joshua made stone knives and circumcised the People of Israel at Foreskins Hill. Joshua 5:5 All the people who had come out of Egypt, of course, had been circumcised, but all those born in the wilderness along the way since leaving Egypt had not been. Joshua 5:7 But their children had replaced them. These are the ones Joshua circumcised. They had never been circumcised; no one had circumcised them along the way. Acts 15:1 It wasn't long before some Jews showed up from Judea insisting that everyone be circumcised: "If you're not circumcised in the Mosaic fashion, you can't be saved." Acts 16:3 Paul wanted to recruit him for their mission, but first took him aside and circumcised him so he wouldn't offend the Jews who lived in those parts. They all knew that his father was Greek. Romans 2:25 Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with God's law. But if you don't, it's worse than not being circumcised. Romans 2:26 The reverse is also true: The uncircumcised who keep God's ways are as good as the circumcised-- Romans 2:27 in fact, better. Better to keep God's law uncircumcised than break it circumcised. Romans 4:9 Do you think for a minute that this blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised? Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God? We all agree, don't we, that it was by embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God? Galatians 2:3 Significantly, Titus, non-Jewish though he was, was not required to be circumcised. Galatians 6:13 They themselves don't keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible! Philippians 3:5 a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God's law; Colossians 2:11 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in--insiders-not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29: "When a man comes upon a virgin who has never been engaged and grabs and rapes her and they are found out, the man who raped her has to give her father fifty pieces of silver. He has to marry her because he took advantage of her. And he can never divorce her."

Zodiac, truthfully, I didn't connect well with the poem......it's not a topic that has picked my interest.

Totally gay!

This poem is 150,000,000 per cent non-gay. Well done.

A good, simple rhyme scheme, with a deft and poignant interweaving of harrowing social commentary. Well done!

Mc.Frantic, this is pretty good. But, I would also rather prefer a definite rhythm. Would enhance the beauty of what you've pictured.