poemranker ::Eternity by Dovina

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Free verse № 132463

Eternity

by Dovina

Member since 2004 · Posted 24 Oct 2005 · 15 comments

What shall I do After I die? Newport Shores? A lot with a view? Close to Fashion Island? As in real estate It’s location location location Her condition’s going down I heard them say But the opposite is true Strength and vigor exhausted A good sign Draws a satisfying vision Up to Mt. Nebo I’ll go No earthly Canaan for me Upward, onward!

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15 comments

[7] wilco 24-Oct-05/7:25 PM Reply
I think you should have stopped after the location line and it would've been pretty okay, but I think the last half kills it.
[n/a] Dovina › wilco 24-Oct-05/8:04 PM Reply
The last half kills it for you either because you find it bad writing or because you do not accept what it says, or both. Much of my writing is trying to express what other people think. While my own beliefs and thoughts inevitably seep in, this one is what I think she really wanted to say. Admittedly, the first half is light hearted and half joking, while the second half is Christian belief. You probably like the joking part and object to the belief.
[7] wilco › Dovina 25-Oct-05/7:36 PM Reply
I object to the second half becauseI simpy don't like it. It doesn't strike me as being anything more than someone accepting their fate, which, In my view isn't anything new or exciting. You Christians seem to have an overly optimistic view of death in verse or conversation, but the tune often changes when the end is actually staring you in the eye (not all, but many).
[8] zodiac 25-Oct-05/2:40 AM Reply
Woo-hoo. Mt Nebo's here in Jordan, you know. Upward, indeed. Everything except "But the opposite is true / Strength and vigor exhausted" is great. Change that to something less totally didactic and wood-tongued. Or drop it altogether. DOVINA: But that line's the whole point! ZODIAC: Exactly.
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 25-Oct-05/7:08 AM Reply
Yes I will say “But that’s the whole point.” See my comment to Alchemy. If you say “Exactly,” you are simply disagreeing with the Christian position that “To die is gain.” It’s alright to disagree, but please try to understand this dying woman’s position.
[8] zodiac › Dovina 25-Oct-05/12:25 PM Reply
No, I'm disagreeing with the position that it's necessary to say so so bluntly in a poem. Don't assume that crap about me. I happen to occasionally agree with the position that a Christian dying is gain. But I agree most with the missionary position.
[n/a] ALChemy 25-Oct-05/6:29 AM Reply
If "But the opposite is true" refers to "It’s location location location" then bravo. If it refers to "Her condition’s going down" than BOO! It's the meat of a contradiction sandwich because you follow with -"Strength and vigor exhausted". I know you're taking what the doctors are saying out of context but it's a bit confusing. Did you write this in MS Word because all the first letters in each line are capitalized.

Interesting point of view. Optimistic, no sense of dread what-so-ever.
[n/a] Dovina › ALChemy 25-Oct-05/7:08 AM Reply
I did write in MS Word, but I wanted the capitals as a kind of Biblical parallel.
"But the opposite is true" refers to the line directly above it. You say BOO because it seems contradictory. But for a Christian, a dying body is good because it brings her nearer to her God. “To be absent from the body is to be present with God.”
[8] zodiac › Dovina 25-Oct-05/12:34 PM Reply
Stop it. You're so proud of yourself for supposedly ruffling our feathers. Whatever. We've heard this stuff since we were kids. If you'd bother considering the disintegration of the self into the godhead at the moment of death, and whether that means you or your protagonist will ever actually experience God/heaven in any form recongizable as 'self', you might ruffle us.

To whatever you might respond, my response is:

The medieval mystic Catherine of Siena believed Christ had married her in a vision with the foreskin of his circumcision.

Check and mate.
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 25-Oct-05/5:27 PM Reply
Yes, it’s a familiar debate – hohum by now. Yawn. You see my religious remarks as attempts to ruffle feathers, and respond ruffled in some other way, such as thinking I’m proud, rubbing in stuff you’ve heard since you were a kid. And after some outburst along another line of thought, in this case disintegration of the self, you pronounce yourself the winner with check and mate.

In most of these arguments I’ve had no desire to feather ruffle, but rather to express some belief or opinion for open discussion.
[8] zodiac › Dovina 26-Oct-05/5:48 AM Reply
Yeah, you're so casual about the matter you can't stop yourself from calling everyone who's bothered mentioning your poem's technical clumsiness a, um, what's your expression? oh, a disagreer.

For example,
WILCO: I think the last half kills it.
DOVINA: You probably like the joking part and object to the belief.

ZODIAC: Change that to something less totally didactic and wood-tongued.
DOVINA: You are simply disagreeing with the Christian position that “To die is gain.”

ALCHEMY: I know you're taking what the doctors are saying out of context but it's a bit confusing.
DOVINA: You say BOO because it seems contradictory. But for a Christian, Blaaaaaaaaaat.

In other words, none of us cares to discuss the doctrinal part. Maybe YOU care to discuss it because it's like the third time you've totally flipped on the matter since coming to poemranker and you're rather proud of yourself (rather than, say, wondering if your such a total sack of contradictions you mightn't just fly apart at any moment.) Personally, we're bored with the matter. You don't believe me. Whatever. It's old news.

What I DO care to discuss is the annihilation of the self into God. If you're not going to discuss that with me, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to go somewhere else. Now I'll start.

ZODIAC: If (as only seems reasonable) the soul is incorporated into God at the instant of death, so that all, say, the imperfect parts of zodiac are burned away and what's left is only perfection and God-love, can I really say zodiac (ie, the part of zodiac that makes him zodiac) "survives death" or experiences heaven in any meaningful way?

If (as only seems reasonable) I become some perfect-and-totally-different eternal zodiac, will I really care?
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 26-Oct-05/8:13 AM Reply
No, that's a completely different subject. Some other time. And the original subject you have totally misrepresented.
[8] zodiac › Dovina 27-Oct-05/4:18 AM Reply
I might have misrepresented AlChemy's part, who knows? I don't even remember what the original subject was. Wasn't it that none of us cared about the original subject?
[n/a] ALChemy › zodiac 27-Oct-05/8:02 AM Reply
http://www.phoenix5.org/humor/WhosOnFirstAudio.mp3

This pretty much sums it up.
[8] zodiac › zodiac 27-Oct-05/1:07 PM Reply
Or this.

Q: Please describe the mechanism that intelligent design proposes for how complex biological structures arose.

A: Well, the word "mechanism" can be used in many ways. ... When I was referring to intelligent design, I meant that we can perceive that in the process by which a complex biological structure arose, we can infer that intelligence was involved...

Q: What is the mechanism that intelligent design proposes?

A: And I wonder, could—am I permitted to know what I replied to your question the first time?

Q: I don't think I got a reply, so I'm asking you. You've made this claim here (reading): "Intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on the proposed mechanism of how complex biological structures arose." And I want to know, what is the mechanism that intelligent design proposes for how complex biological structures arose?

A: Again, it does not propose a mechanism in the sense of a step-by-step description of how those structures arose. But it can infer that in the mechanism, in the process by which these structures arose, an intelligent cause was involved.

- Intelligent Design proponent Michael Behe being questioned at evolution vs Intelligent Design hearings in Pennsylvania