Yet somehow it doesn't hold together. it is hard to be specific here.
Hide and seek from what?
Becoming familiar with what about you?
Tattled on you about what?

Perhaps some punctuation might help.
I like moral ambihuity yet I can not decide who is really the victim here.

I have to agree with Jess, there seemed to be bits missing, the story incomplete.
Longish lines with breaks for breath, could bring this out into the open, there are a few questions as to cause and effect here.
Yours Ian.T

Let's see if I can come up with something.......
S-1,l-1 try death entered me through her sex hole (clarifies which person death entered)
S--1, l-3 needs a period at the end (In my opinion punctuation is needed more when a poem consists of only one long stanza)
S-1,l- To heck with this stanza and line stuff lol. Easier to just repost with suggestions included in this instance

Death entered me through her sex hole
and ate me away
until I was just another passing stranger.
I mused over the blood I should be spilling
thus teasing her with a playful game of hide and seek.
She sought me deep into the marrow
becoming familiar with me in that old haunt
where I hummed songs with Death
while holding hands with her womb.
She betrayed me to my god
and were my god to exist
I would surely have been punished... (the ... was put there to signify that protagonist still expects punishment)

Hope I didn't mess this up too badly. BTW I read this as being about AIDS.....stan

I can't critique because I am not a member of the workshop, but I will say that the piece holds promise, even if in a haphazard way! Keep tweaking it a bit and see what happens!

and if that is the case, I don't get lines two and three and feel like the title should be something that emphasizes more of a mutually rending process. And I would just plain get rid of "She tattled on me to my god" since people tend to think capital-G God, anyway, is omniscient. The whole poem has a hostile feel for me so that I kind of wish "her" in line one was "its", the thing vs. the person with the sex hole.

in critiquing this one. If you are asking me to point out specific ways to make this better, I will fail.
I found it to be very disjointed [ although I think that this might be the very thing that you wish ].
Now that you have explained it as being about abortion, I realize that it makes more sense. I do agree that punctuation is needed here. I think it could make it a bit clearer as to what is going on. ~ Geezer

That is what I meant. Until you explained the sequence I wasn't sure of it. Thank you for explaining.~ Gee

and much of the confusion for me is about who is speaking. Who is "her/I/she" in various parts of the poem? I thought the fetus was the speaker in the entire poem but from reading your sequence, it seems the mother is the speaker in the last lines. For me, an interesting question is why none of us could understand the poem is about abortion. I had initially thought it was about miscarriage so am unsure why I didn't make the link to abortion. Maybe some of the other readers can write as to why the topic seemed so hard to grasp. Again, I think a different title might frame the topic more clearly. I wonder if Stan thought it was about AIDS because "tempestuous" inclines one to think of an adult love affair.

the consensus is that the poem is obscure and does not convey the meaning.
The only question is what you are going to do about it.
If you are brave enough to name abortion in the poem that comes with an obligation to make a moral stance on it. Are you shirking that?

the present form of this work. You have made it crystal-clear. ~ Gee

I always think that if I have to explain even the surface meaning of a poem that I have failed as a writer. Abortion is a brutal business and also pretty straight forward. But the brutality is absent here and the fact that you are having to explain this kinda negates it being straight forward. Perhaps Hearing this poem spoken would make the difference because then the different inflections and such might clarify things. I'm still a bit confused about those last 3 lines. Did she tattle on herself via some kind of confession? And why would the fetus feel as if he/she deserves being punished? But you do display courage in writing about a topic which is so controversial.....Hmmmm....... maybe beginning this with a line of two about the protagonist being content and feeling loved would provide the contrast with the existing 1st line which is needed to both provide a better hint of subject matter and also add to the brutality which the fetus is subjected to...........stan

i saw this posted and knowing more of the authors
here from works..profile..comments etc...
i went over it...much like a lot of my goings on in life..
i am not so much in the action but an observer
like sayin g the un is an observer

been hanging about women forever and men
the odd time to form up on a crew or time
inside an establishment
tourist camp
treatment centre
pysch ward
jail
drunk bucket
rooming

men describe the womanly parts
like a car..a job..
rapture and joy and like news
at times
or disregard

and the women
just do
describe their parts as
nicknames and pop
slang at times
more freer
more open
and more solutions
at times

they are paid less
work harder
bear children
we dont
no carrying a child
depending with a child
fending with and for a child
and no birth to see the fathers
eyes..nose...for even with
same partners of sex if a child
arrives there is somewhere a
male...

contagion came to mind the
first time i read this....
there are so many now
from the lands of far
brought to the mainland
we venture further into the heart
of darkness with our wants
and needs and venture

i was born and adopted
my story was fraught
with much...and i questioned
why my mother at eighteen
did not abort me

i know women who aborted
and men who supported
this but it was the womens
decision by other women
at times to abort a child

always wondered about how
daring we men would be if
we had to remove something
from us.....cancer with us
or disfunction but not life
we carry it in us..on us..
our purpose is to work..
strife...take risks
live long enough

i have only heard another abstract
story as this poem before
a patient made friends
with a friend told her
his mother was abducted
by aliens..and he was removed
worked on a little and put back
in the womb again
peaceable enough peoples
those two

the freedom of originality for
that thought still makes me smile

after the explanations above
i get it.....before..not so...
as a write i thought it
interesting and came back\
to it when i saw it again

i think its pretty creative
its an exercise in writing
that makes one work hard
to describe in an abstract
manner an equally abstract
subject manner....

sextons work whom i like
is like this in places

and i want to write similarly
im just not at the complete
abstraction stage
such as this approach

thank you!

without high school or friends of an upper challenge to intellect..class
etc i would not have gotten too much far....and it was my other then
ex...and back again old lady that got me introduced to the contacts
whom wrote her...the boxes of letters crafted..poems..sketches of
tatoos ideas..little home made portraits of her...then my ten days
off main floor and not on "protective custody" gave me great insight
of how life could have gone or been....

i have met many closed minds too.....people who have drive
and ideas.....they drop the shield of righteousness and denial
making their way....and they sometimes do well..

reading just finished up where my parents sisters and our
acess to comix and graphic novels and the graphic picture
novels of adults....dictionary bible....big deal i could articulate
but i didnt know everything and these smart people can read
me like i read them....heres a book..read this..heres a mag
read this....

then made parodies of stories...the strange wit and sarcasm

sextons books fascinated me
the way she wrote was impressive
joseph conrads detailing and duration
of focus...atwoods keen dialogues

mammals bring to us the new..the interesting..
a meteorite fell in quebec back in the early nineties
one spring....people saw it...a farmer out to do his
chores for his dairy cattle saw his crew of cows
excited....mingling waiting for him...he knows
animals like some people know people..
the cows walked him over to the object of
their concern....intelligence..and creative
intelligence is a gift..and a bane given
and the beauty of the creation...be
it poetry rocks or cows are dynamic
wonders that are shared by those
with interest...

sexton just wanted friends acceptance
of her fears....she didnt fight the
madness inherited or made
and reflections inside others didnt
set her off of what she feared inside
herself....

sharing...it works..
and im glad she shared her
gift..her talents she honed
then to get out there..

same with here...

love the comments
here...this part of this poetic
community i like the most
what i enjoyed about high school
and coffee shops

the intel thing..

automatically gives it a pro-life moral bias. That is why I never considered it a poem about abortion. Foetuses don't think and personifying them construes abortion as murder. You may not have considered it a moral poem, nonetheless you made it so.

If you wish to tackle such a subject, and why not? You may as well name it and open the debate. You say "At this point, no one is conveying to me exactly why they feel the poem is obscure". What do expect them to say? "I don't understand this because it says.." or "The poem is obscure because I don't understand it?" Some explanation was given through questions.

You seem more intent in arguing with the critique than acknowledging it and improving the poem.

suess would probably have issues as he had..
lewis caroll..dont let me start..

i wonder if my mother whom seemed to have had
a hate love relationship with whomever my father
was why in heavens name did she just not abort
me.....as the story goes...its bleak and dark
and i got saved in the nick of time....

i would have missed a lot of amazing things...
like a funeral if i did die amongst others and someone had noticed
and they had my remains...where now parents who plan their
lives..marriages careers can have a choice to see what
the sex of the child is..or the physical traits inherited
..the term changeling comes to mind
and really...in todays world....we all have great liberties
over times served for a type of crime that was an execution
less then sixty years ago with the hanging and electric
chair.....now ten served good behaviour and one can
like David from the good book serve the better purpose..
and families can build their model family if they wish..
in the past one had to dabble in the dark trade..now with
the tools of science a perfect kind of start can be envisioned
and acted upon.....what is the betterment for society then
to create a freedom and a liberterian kind of utopia before
the end arrives as it seems to be approaching...
a healthier society...

i was born a blemish...a marred output..
all the world would be is one less poet had i been
terminated

i like this kind of poem....it illicits such a response..
from me...