Would you consider this a poem?

Question:The Hard Sell

You’re in God’s hands now, time’s ticking away. Yes, you’re in God’s hands now, guess it’s always been that way. But I can see them now and they’re putting a necklace ‘round your throat; I can see God’s hands now and they’re clasping gold braid forever ‘round your throat.

His beautiful hands seem so cruel, as if they don’t care; and I guess they don’t, for the mortal fool must accept that it ain’t fair. That in the end he’s got no control, there’s only God above—outlives us all with the promise that our soul He will always love.

And we have to take comfort in that and pretend we’re not afraid to die, pretend that we’re not afraid that in the end, there’s no answer to that question, why. That’s what it is to believe in God and I think human nature and emotion contrast him well; most are so poor, we could never pay the price of such a hard sell.

--Please feel free to comment and ridicule with your most vicious of eye.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: The Hard Sell

You’re in God’s hands now, time’s ticking away. Yes, you’re in God’s hands now, guess it’s always been that way. But I can see them now and they’re putting a necklace ‘round your throat; I can see God’s hands now and they’re clasping gold braid forever ‘round your throat.

His beautiful hands seem so cruel, as if they don’t care; and I guess they don’t, for the mortal fool must accept that it ain’t fair. That in the end he’s got no control, there’s only God above—outlives us all with the promise that our soul He will always love.

And we have to take comfort in that and pretend we’re not afraid to die, pretend that we’re not afraid that in the end, there’s no answer to that question, why. That’s what it is to believe in God and I think human nature and emotion contrast him well; most are so poor, we could never pay the price of such a hard sell.

--Please feel free to comment and ridicule with your most vicious of eye.

I'm not nuts about the content--but I can lay that aside. Your question goes to the 'nuts and bolts' issue of rhyme. I see them, and I won't be alone in that; they don't work here. Too much distance between them. They fail to couple the thoughts of the rhyming lines.

You end up with a prose piece that has a few nagging 'rhyme husks' cluttering it up, spoiling the natural rhythms of speech.

Ordinarily, I'm a big fan of rhyme, but here it's used ineptly, inappropriately. But perhaps you're only running an experiment to find the limits of rhyme. You found an upper bound, I think. This distance between rhymes is too much.

So, rewrite it, and get rid of the rhymes. (Never thought I'd say THAT!)

Is it a poem? Close enough. But you knew that.

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i don't the techniques that make a piece of writing a poem, but i just want to say that this piece you've written is powerful! it got to me.. ! greatly done.. i'll say it's a poem!

nah

The beginning sounded like a poem but towards the end not so much. I think that it is really beautiful and you did a great job.

I'd consider it a very bad poem - I tried to force myself to read all of it but i could not.

The piece pretends that it is being spoken by a firm believer in God who is about to be executed.
You fail to convince me that you have this unquestioning belief in God, or that you have ever been executed.
Which leaves me wondering: are you b***sh***** me - or only yourself?

This is definitely a poem. Just make it into more lines, I'd say and not so much paragraphs.
I really like the way you write, you're amazing. I love reading poetry, it's like a candy store for a little boy or girl.

Great work. Keep it up.

I think it's good. It needs alittle bit of work but it's not bad. I see what you're saying. Great message. Keep writing.

Of course it's a poem! Just because you tried to fool us by its prosaic format, doesn't change that anymore than putting on a hula skirt would make me Hawaiian. It has a rhythm which scans very well. It has a (fairly) regular meter. It even has words that rhyme.[WOWIE] Now if you had asked me if it is a GOOD poem, I would have said......(The management regrets not being able to decipher the subsequent words.)

Oh how wonderful! I definitely consider this a poem. Maybe a prose poem? Not sure, but I definitely think it qualifies as a poem.

The first stanza has an almost olden feel to the language and the way you repeat the "'round your throat" part. I like that and I think I would like to see it carried through the rest of the poem.

In the last stanza, I think the first sentence is a little run on. I might reformat it to something like:
"And we have to take comfort in that and pretend we're not afraid to die. We pretend we're not afraid that in the end there's no answer to the question "why"."
Or maybe you could use a semi-colon in there instead of a comma.

One thing I would definitely do is to try throughout the poem is to delete a few of those "That's". Mostly in that first sentence of the third verse, but if you can find a way around using the word "That" I think writing becomes much stronger.

Now as for the subject matter I really love the struggle and ideas you have portrayed. At first I didn't understand the golden necklace reference, but after thinking about it and re-reading the "gold braid forever" it seemed to mean that the person had accepted salvation, which is represented by the necklace. I think it might be a little clearer if you said "gold braided forever", to imply the necklace was eternity. I also really like the 'you're in God's hands now, but I guess it's always been that way'. It really shows how a person coming to salvation thinks "I'm in God's hands now", but then realizes they always were. It's a really nice point to make.

I struggled a little bit with the idea of God's hands seeming cruel, but then I thought about it. I thought about all the times we struggle with doubt and life not being fair and how that indeed translates to us thinking that perhaps God doesn't care or is cruel. I think the second stanza really captures the struggle of believers to have faith that God really does care and does love us. It also captures the struggle to give up control and trust in God. I also really love that you ended the stanza, which started off with God seeming cruel and uncaring, with the part about God's promise to always love us.

The last stanza really captures the struggle to "keep the faith" so to say, as well as showing the fear we have. I think even the strongest of believers have struggled with the doubt and fear of dying and what if they've been wrong. I think you've phrased it quite nicely, because when we are struggling with doubt we often try to pretend we aren't both to ourselves and to others.

I also really like the ending. The way you present the whole struggle, fear, doubt, happiness, and love in the rest of the poem to say "that's what it means" is wonderful. It's so true. I also really love the way you said that our hard emotions and doubt and fear contrast against God and that many people are "poor" in the emotions and faith to be able to believe what sometimes comes across as ridiculous and cruel. The Hard Sell is a wonderful idea and title and very true.

Even if I'm a little off base of what you meant, I really like the poem because it made me think and consider things and reflect on my own emotions and my own struggles. Really nice job.

One last suggestion: since you capitalize God, you need to capitalize "Him" when you're referencing God. i.e. "...I think human nature and emotion contrast him well" would be "...contrast Him well"

Thanks for the good read!

A poem by any other name ...

If you need some Kleenex, please call. The commentary so far is inspiring. Roasting to praising, so nice to see you creating opinions. I do wait to see the 6,6,6 haiku.