Holy War

A poem on the dangers of open agnosticism and seeking spirituality. "I am left naked and alone to the mercy..."

Holy War

The battle in my head
destroys its walls
and burns its refuge.
I am left
naked and alone
to the mercy of
unforgiving ideals
and blasphemous
beliefs that fight
over the prize of one
beautiful, helpless,
powerful thought to
add to a collection of
greater ones.
Armies are being built
and nothing induces lust
like an open mind. 

Author's Note

Please review. :D Concrit is welcome.

Reviews

[Emily Rose]

So true! So often a simple conversation about religion will spark a "war," and it gets very tiresome. You express this sentiment well, although I think the form of the poem itself has a few slight problems: I was a little confused by the first two lines: "The battle in my head/destroys its walls/and burns its refuge." What walls are being burned? The walls of your head? Not your literal head, surely, but the walls of your mind. The walls of your thoughts, perhaps? You should make this more clear. Also, where is the battle "burning its refuge?" In your mind? Just a simple clarification of place would be supremely helpful here.

Also the phrase "to the mercy" sounds strange: usually we are not left "to the mercy" of someone, but rather "AT their mercy" or perhaps we are thrown "ON their mercy." "To" does not fit. The lines between "I am left" and "greater ones" form a run-on sentence and need some punctuation - it's hard to read without it, and those lines form the "meat" of the poem, so they deserve some direction. The same goes for the last three lines (which I really like, by the way; it's a good ending); there should be a comma after "built" to direct the flow of the line and keep it clear. Without the comma, I had to read the lines several times to see what you were saying, and that's as hinderance, especially in such good closing lines.

All in all, this is a good idea and it's well executed, but it would be much better with a little editing. Good job!