Commentary:

This poem began in much the same way as 'Amour Encore', with the sound of the word "gravamen." This quickly led to "grave" and thoughts of mortality. I am poking fun at the way we constantly insist on our rights these days and wonder what our rights look like from the perspective of eternity. I am criticizing the way we take a political philosophy like democracy and apply it to our spiritual and moral lives. Nobody gets to vote about when they die, and they certainly don't get to vote after they die. Death is not a democracy. It is certainly unfair from a democratic standpoint. I tried to imagine people in our litigious culture trying to sue God or Death for taking them before they were ready.

This was poem #152 of my collection, drawn from almost two years of daily writing attempts. It was begun on 6/19/98 and revised for the 7th time on 6/20/99. It is a 12 line poem with 12 syllables and one parenthesis per line. I liked the way the regular use of parentheses seemed to provide a rhythm of sorts. One phrase that may be too obscure is "gravy on the cake." But Alla Abdelnaby, a Duke basketball player (from Egypt, I believe), said this in an interview, and I couldn't resist including it. It was another example of the naive use of language being more profound and original than the correct but cliché use of language.

In general, my poems tend to be too cerebral, and I need to work on making sure there is live blood in them - that there is real human experience involved, not just intellectual word play. Also, I need to pay closer attention to rhythm and meter. I suffer from metrical laziness because of the free verse world I was born into, and I welcome the challenge of the New Formalists.

Finally, I would like to second everything Ian Irvine wrote in his commentary on his poems in this forum, and I would love to hear from anyone who shares his and my vision to come to terms with the darker side of secularism.

Yours and His,