While you have interesting thoughts, the form of this poem needs, very, very badly, an overhaul. as in,

1) You've actually written prose and hacked it into lines. There is no economy of language. These lines look like they've been written haphazardly with no attention to sound or form.

2) Your rhymes are forced and cliche, and it's further made awkward by bad phrasing, in

"when the doctors live to for the lying,"

and there are other example. Pain/gain is a cliche, just about as overused as moon/june and heart/apart in other people's amateur verse.

3) Take out unneeded words. This attempt at a poem is too wordy, and that makes the process of reading clunky and cumbersome. By taking out unneeded words, you'll shrink your lines a bit.

4) Get rid of cliche language. "Flying **" is over used, as is "Hell on earth." I'd say ditch this sort of language and try for a more evocative, precise sense of image.

Been awhile since you've posted anything new here, but this isn't a bad piece to reappear with. Poetry is not my forte, but I've had to learn to read and critique it to some degree, but I'll be brief.

While I understand the stylistic implications, I would suggest full stops occassionally. Commas slow down, and periods even more, but well, it just clears it up a bit. Gives the reader a few more signposts as to what refers to what. SOmetimes you simply end a line without any punctuation, but it doesn't make sense read with the next line. Dang it, I said I'd be brief...

I like the images, as someone already pointed out. Very poignant and clear, in most instances. The referral to the spleen leaves me scratching my head a little bit, though I think I see the correlation. The spleen is where blood is made new, cleaned (well, to some extent. Made mainly in marrow, but the reference is still the same...), so cleansing? Maybe I completely missed the point and it was only meant as a rhyme. Whatever. "doctors live to for the lying," is another phrase that confuses me. Mainly the live to. I must ask, typo, or purposeful? If on purpose, I'm completely bamfoozled. Which is a really fun word. Unlike lard. It works finme in the poem, but it is one of those words like puss; just isn't pleasant. Whioch is, I suppose, the point. I could be brief if I didn't ramble so...

Finally, I must say I am in love with the rhythm of this poem. It does have a very strong cadence to it that makes me imagine it as spoken word. I think it'd be amazing performed. And, while I don't thinnk I agree with all the religious aspects, it is a fairly good poem. Your phrasing in some areas was dead on, the ferryman lines being personal favorites.

Well, best of luck!

Gata

Good stuff man. You may not realize it but your poetry is one of your biggest strengths. I can easily see this translated visually. The poetry at authorsden you posted is unmatched.