You should have been here when me and Zodiac debated over what to call a non-designated gender.

Me too. Thanks.
You seem a little on the inactive side lately.
Alaska's fucking with your sleep pattern ain't it.

You don't want to be refered to as "It" or "He/she" do you?

I have faith in you. You'll come up with one of those unique enigmatic phrases you're so famous for. My next one's a haiku. I'll probably post it early tomorrow. I expect nothing short of genius from you:)
Thanks man.

God bless you. You've got that part perfect. I meant Blake was my motive for sounding almost cheesy with the faithful parts and philosophical with the skeptic parts. Were I missed like you said is in the crumbling rhythm. Blake had great rhythm.

Oh look the irony detector went off:)

You've heard terms like "Rough waters ahead" or "Bridge over troubled waters" or "Raging like a river". The grandmother's trying to keep those kind of waters in the boy still.

Most of ecargo's comments and poems lately imply womanhood. But the old stuff implies manhood. So, I don't get it either.

Sure, it is a summary. Good children connects the start and end of the poem. It starts with the scene of some older, wiser person teaching or preaching or whatever you want to call it, to the children of the world. Considering the subject matter and my motive of putting skepticism and faith side by side harmoniously in a poem, it seems acceptable to me to use preachy, dogmatic and even a little biblical cliche language when representing the faith side of the poem. In short, you're noticing things I hoped you would but you're missing my reasons for putting them there. So in that way I've failed miserably. You've really given me alot to think about and I thank you.

Yes, it is good to know a man's genetics. So are you a man or a woman ecargo?

But only "when" you want us to be gentle.

Good point. This is why I rarely change my poems. I just use the suggestioins as consideration for my next poem. I really just wanted ecargo to experiment with her layout and pick what she liked. So many times people write their poems and then don't even think about trying different things after they finish the first draft. I bet you go through about 7 or 8 drafts before you consider one of your stories complete.

Is this PR, all these tens? Did you just pick up a publisher?

Just kidding:)

No harm no foul. No I really wasn't expecting you to use the format I suggested. I just wanted you to 'er-uhm' play with it
and see what you could come up with. I'm more likely to nitpick a better poem like this one than a bad one.

By all means write happy when you're happy, sad when you're sad. Just use the right methods to convey your feelings so that others can feel it a little too. Put yourself in the shoes of your subject. That's all I meant.

Topper was written first. I don't know, maybe I decided to change the spelling to designate a male and female version of the name like they do in spanish. It's connected. They're both about love and war.
It's a lyric so I guess you really need to pick a melody an fit the words into it the best you can but I'll see what I can do about the end.

You may come across the popular poemranker critique "Show us don't tell us" and you'll think "what the hell is that supposed to mean. If so, I feel your pain. It's a generic comment made by those who are too lazy to explain what they mean. What they usually mean is that in some poems you should make the poem take on the characteristics of the subject. If it's a sad poem use sad words and slow rythm. If it's a happy poem use happy words and upbeat rhythm. Think about writing your poem in a parable style like Jesus did with his disciples. Now this isn't always the case. I am perfectly OK with scientific and philosophical approaches to poetry that avoid too much aesthetic imagery and are focussed more on the truth of reality. Anyway I just thought I'd let you know that here, it's a lot about "show".

Some good comments on the meter and commas. Thanks, I'll work on it.
I considered changing "inherit the earth" but I couldn't resist leaving it in because it implies the death or retirement of a parent or of God. It also reinforces that the grown children are taking God's knowledge with them. Had I used a more obscure biblical reference the effect would have been lost.
It's quite hard to say something either pro or anti-god and not come out sounding a little preachy which is why I'm glad it doesn't bother you.
The teller of the poem is percieved an older wise person simply by the way the listeners are addressed in the poem.
So fresh language would come across as some young buck trying to tell you how it is.(Word up, yo)
"Compelling" would really come across as preachy.("The power of Christ compells you")
For my take on Lewis Carroll see:
http://poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=135039