Re: a comment on Satan's Pillar: The Wisdom of Heresy. by SupremeDreamer	1-Feb-05/8:39 PM
You’ve heard it said there are no atheists in foxholes. That’s because most people who are dying or think they’re going to die soon pull all the comforting God-loving, God-saving reinforcements from their religions, all they can possibly muster. That’s why I’m having trouble with your man who does the opposite. Not that it’s impossible. There might be a religious person somewhere, someone who has tried to follow God all his life and when he comes to the end, brings out all these counter arguments. I’ve just never seen it and think it usually goes the other way. I make the arguments in your poem sometimes, but would I make them on my deathbed – that’s the question.
Re: Satan's Pillar: The Wisdom of Heresy. by SupremeDreamer	1-Feb-05/3:07 PM
Well, for starters, try “ask” in the first line. Nothing like bad grammar to tick off satin. The second verse (lines 2 & 3) doesn’t hold ginger ale because when a pious person comes to death, he seldom says that, but rather glorifies God. After that dismal beginning, it improves. The statements to the dead man are poignant, if futile, since he’s dead. Wait a minute, he’s alive again in the “dispirited” verse. You must mean in the afterlife. Whatever, that aggravates your cause, don’t you think? Presuming an afterlife? So here is the pious man arguing, presumably with Peter or some such Golden Gate Keeper, justifying his righteous life. But then it’s Death that laughs, so the whole thing is getting ethereal and weird. The argument continues, but it seems futile. The man is already dead and in no position to change anything. Other than that, it’s a fine fight.
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	1-Feb-05/11:29 AM
Thanks for so graciously clearing up the matter.
Re: a comment on Psalm of Wonder by Dovina	1-Feb-05/11:23 AM
Yes, for all the good it does an ant to reject the boy who destroys its nest. No, rejection is futile. Understanding is futile too, but I feel a little better about it.
Re: a comment on Depth of Illusion by Beyond_Dreams	1-Feb-05/7:43 AM
Because you can't follow the simple structure set up for us by nentwined, or follow the subject being discussed.
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	1-Feb-05/7:35 AM
Would you care to list, O knower of women's arts and crafts, the Three Principles of Embroidery and Five Pillars of Poetry? And please do it without looking anything up.
Re: a comment on Psalm of Wonder by Dovina	1-Feb-05/7:30 AM
Good analogy. Ants would not like such a god as this boy is.
Re: a comment on Psalm of Wonder by Dovina	1-Feb-05/7:29 AM
Thanks for showing that I am not the only person in the long history of mankind to think of God in this rather dismal way, certainly not a way that appeals to our usual emotions. By the way, where’s the 10 you promised?
Re: a comment on Psalm of Wonder by Dovina	1-Feb-05/7:29 AM
It works in recognizing the existence of God, as you have said. It also points out God’s apparent unconcern for his creations, which seem no more important to him than an ant farm as Wilco mentions below. He does not seem like the loving, caring God that so many people depend on and look to for help. The punctuation is consistent in its own way.
Re: Baghdad Election by Mona Lisa	31-Jan-05/11:31 AM
Very timely. The war is lost, yes, sadly.
Re: a comment on Depth of Illusion by Beyond_Dreams	31-Jan-05/11:29 AM
He means he's jealous and lonesome, like a desert rat. He wants you to humor him with objections. Really, though this is not bad, pretty nice really.
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	31-Jan-05/11:16 AM
My grandmother tried to teach me embroidery, but she discovered that I could not learn its intricacies, otherwise you might not be subjected to the lesser skill of my poetry.
Re: a comment on Psalm of Wonder by Dovina	31-Jan-05/10:38 AM
This poem does not work on an emotional level.
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	31-Jan-05/6:48 AM
you still don't get it. It has nothing to do with averages. The yeast is simpoly better at surviving in its environment than other kinds of living creatrues are in its environment.
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	30-Jan-05/4:07 PM
Most chimps are more clever than most humans. Most humans could not survive in a chimp’s environment without clothing and tools. Most men could not survive in a woman's environment with clothing or tools.
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	29-Jan-05/11:35 AM
Your ridiculous assertion contradicts itself in concluding that men are better than women after saying that “on average . . .” I’ll bet I am more spatially aware than most men, and can run farther and faster than you can.
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	29-Jan-05/11:29 AM
Perhaps I should have added that it seemed what they were promising was more than either of them could deliver should the circumstances shown in the poem come to pass – his going to the ends of the earth and doing the most despicable things, or his cruelties and abuses, or hers. I know few women who seem able to keep their promise of “For better or worse” if he does those things and keeps doing them. My parents made it together for 55 years until death parted them, but neither of them faced great infidelity or abuse. Their marriage and yours are love as it should be.
Re: Waiting for October by wilco	28-Jan-05/11:10 AM
A sad wait indeed. For what? Seems like it needs to say what she's waiting for.
Re: a comment on #28 by Lifeboatman	28-Jan-05/10:57 AM
You just called me not bright and brilliant in the same sentence. How enlightening! And you missed the _____point!
Re: a comment on In Answer To Your Question by Dovina	28-Jan-05/10:52 AM
Verbosity is a sin, for which, if I have committed it, I repent! But I thought that each line was expressing a different promise and considering it in the prospect of marriage. Not that I’m getting married, but at a wedding recently, it seemed what they were promising was not what they could possibly deliver.