I appreciate your not taking this personally. What aroused me to this point was McFan's idiotic comment on this poem. How much thought did you put into this poem? How much have you studied about the craft of writing poetry? If this poem is any measure I would have to assume the answer to both these questions would be 'none'. The title presumes you know what the riddle is, which is completely impossible because of the strong possibility there's no riddle at all. Your poem doesn't even deal with creation, the six lines you've written deal exclusively with redemption and the unconditional love of an omnipotent deity. Now, all that aside, you are telling and not showing, which for me, is the hallmark of a crap poem. In your Quiet Hills poem you show us what's going on, you leave it to the reader to decide the meaning. Your emotions and contemplations are revealed by the words you've chosen to build the images. Here you are flat out telling me that God has a special Wonderland where we all go after death and all the dear ones are there wearing party hats, hiding behind the furniture just waiting to shout surprise everytime someone new steps in. There's no reason why you shouldn't believe and hope for such loving justice,I agree it would be grand. My opinion is, if you want to write a poem about your faith in the power of love to redeem this tragedy of living then it would be far more interesting and touching to show me what in your life has convinced you of this. That goes for any poem about any subject. As the audience I want to share the experience of the poet, I don't want to be told 'hey this is what I think'. As far as craft goes, there is not even one of the usual devices of poetry found here. Now as far as the actual language, there is such a thing as death, whether or not it's only earthly death is besides the point. Things die, and we suffer and grow because of it. Death is important, it allows us to appreciate life. So right of the bat your asking us to imagine something that is impossible to imagine. You contradict yourself in the 2nd line by saying 'passed' you can argue all you want, but in every languages that I know of, 'passing' is simply a euphomism for death. In the couplet the second line is really a threat. "...His own."? This implies some are not His. You know it isn't really Heaven if not everyone gets to go. The last line your stating you know the riddle of creation? Do you? And if you honestly do, you're not touching on it here. Enless you're saying the riddle of creation is God loves you. How is that a riddle?

4th day. Mark it on your calendar and watch my moods go round and round.

My vote for comment of the month*******

Thank you for finding my poem a suitable place to vent your frustrations. I mean that seriously and with no animosity. I feel a bit honored to be the presenter of material that arouses someone in any way. It’s really quite unusual. I wish you would read the poem again and tell me why you hate it, if that’s not asking for the obvious. On the other matters, I agree with much of what you are saying, and though I’m a new persona on Poemranker, there’s a de déjà vu of having felt as you feel.

You have turded all over your anti-gaye rant by replying to yourself a number of times - this has created an elongated stool of comments which has destroyed the ultimate thread of your commentary. Which I believe is: (Negro ^ Bulging Hard On) + Gay _______________________________ - Nigger = Painkiller Guff

Time of the month?

If someone was obsessively attacking -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. I wouldn't want them to stop. Why do you want pain killer to stop? Is he hurting your feelings?

PPPS-I don't imagine you will, as you've proven yourself here to be a gay of the highest magnitude.

PPS-Your obsession with me is gay to the max. I do wish you'd stop, or at least stop spelling my name ludicrous ways like 'zodiav'.

PS-The word 'nigger' is slightly offensive and hardly ever appears on poemranker. Are you sure you didn't mean 'Negro', which is 10x more ace?

And she still hasn't changed the ridiculous title.

What the hell is going on around here? I just spent 20 min. tracking votes and comments and with the exception of a very few, this entire site has descended into a happily, horribly, pitifully deluded mutual admiration poetry pit. This poem, like every other poem(again with a very very very very few exceptions)posted in the last month, at the very least, is a piece of utter fucking crap. That's not the worst of it. It would seem there are infinite numbers of stupid, spineless, folk who are more than willing to skip through life tra-la-la with the warped conception that as long as everyone one holds hands and is nice to each other well that's all that matters. How many of you idiots have posted 30-40 poems without ever looking back at any of them, trying to make the best of them, or of yourself as a-May the Gods forgive me-poet? Implying that you deficients could possibly be poets is so nauseating, I just threw-up in my mouth a little. What a bunch of disgusting invertebrates. Hundreds of thousands of meaningless tasteless rants all categorized as poetry. It's a fucking shame. The dumbing down of the entire world, neatly organized and presented right here. Once upon a time there was a poetry website unpolluted by the dismal contributions of garden variety troglodytes. Unfortunately that Utopia didn't have a snowball's chance. What with morons and imbeciles throughout the globe with ready access to a keyboard and an internet connection. So it goes. All things wind down to a kind of muddy miserable indifference. This site has transformed into a 500 pound drooling mongoloid who thinks she sports a thong just as seductively as Anna Kornikova(sp). What's worse is when she's confronted by an accurate reflection in a full length mirror, she declares her right to do as she pleases. Of course this should come as no surprise, seeing how low standards are pervasive throughout modern culture, but still it is heartbreaking. The silver has become dross, the wine mixed with water.