It may not criticize your ilk, but you've hardly constructed them a monument or a bomb-shelter (which one is made to last longer?).

I think the section about beating the property with your cane could be sneakier. Were I in command of the line, I would bend it to sound like I am merely beating the grounds (property) with my cane as I walk.

--
You're no scarlet prim proper rose
Sing me your pretty prose
Lips pressed nose to nose
Legs entwined with twenty toes.

The poem puts the whip on everyone. My concern is that people don't read and think its just putting the whip of vegans. That would be ridiculous.

I'll see what I can do about making it sneakier.

--
Harmonize your inward and your outward life, and you soul will know no bounds of joy.

I did make that revision. That was a really good idea Beaple. Thanks a ton.

--
Harmonize your inward and your outward life, and you soul will know no bounds of joy.

Haha! That's awesome! I'm actually...very honored. Other than typos and this one time I went to English class drunk and gave a scathing peer-review to a classmate's paper, I think this is the most significant editorial contribution I've ever made!

--
You're no scarlet prim proper rose
Sing me your pretty prose
Lips pressed nose to nose
Legs entwined with twenty toes.

You should try it more often.

Drinking.

--
Harmonize your inward and your outward life, and you soul will know no bounds of joy.

I love this except the first stanza. I really don't see the connection between soy milk and everything else. And the whole "We love to think ourselves human / and whole" sounds a tad too preachy. My suggestion is to just omit the first stanza and start the poem with the second; I feel that's where everything really kicks off.

Another few niggles:

I'd drop "atrocious" in front of slavery. I think slavery carries enough connotation. I already see it as atrocious, so the word is superfluous.

Capitalize "scoffing" because of the period in the previous line. It'll look better.

"We would have reclined in our
oaken rocking chairs; by candlelight,"

Not a fan of the enjambment here. Ending a line on "our" was underwhelming.

I adore the final stanza a lot. Don't change it.

--
Clearfield Review: Prose, Poetry, Art.

This was really very helpful.

I feel obliged to explain what I was trying to do in that first stanza. The basic idea of the poem is that a lot of people today, especially people who think of themselves as "environmentally friendly" kind of think of themselves as "modern day abolitionists" -- IE: They are doing what is right when everyone else around them is making the wrong decision, and they are ridiculed for it, but in the future people will see that they were correct and lionize them for it. This is especially true in the Vegan community, where people get a lot of crap for being "soft" towards animals.

Anyway, this poem is just trying to take evil more serious than that. Its me admitting that, yeha, I'm a vegan, but I'm not going to call myself a "modern day abolitionist." In fact, given the right cricumstances, I could have easily been a slavemaster. I am evil just like everyone else.

So I put Soy Milk in there, a staple not only of veganism but of environmentalism as a whole, as a way of trying to cue all of that rant in with a couple of lines. Particularly, its sweetened soy milk, because of the artificial way that people treat themselves sweetly.

BUT --- You are right. Here is one of the best quotes on writing I've ever heard, from a famous author's editor

"The writer's investment is often not the reader's investment."


I've invested a lot of thought into this concept, but my reader has not. So they are not going to understand the first stanza, and it will only screw them up as they read the rest of it.

The rest of your "niggles" are spot on. Time to revise.

--
Harmonize your inward and your outward life, and you soul will know no bounds of joy.

I never would have picked that as the parallel of your theme here.

Personally, I would prefer the whole vegan approach but I find some people are too extreme with their feelings that they lack objectivity. For instance, I have a leather hat; I didn't buy it, I got it second hand. Am I to just leave harvested material to waste because of the notion that having that will support more hats to be made from leather? What further waste...

My main beef (haha) with the present angle on the 'moral consumer' is the raised price of things; as someone in a low economic scale (welfare) I don't have the money to spare for being moral and paying an extra bit of money for free range eggs... Sure, I could do that, but that means I give up on saving up and paying for doctor's visits and dental check-ups among other things. With that economic angle, such morals become a consumer luxury rather than preference... And yes, for me right now, every dollar counts. I need to pay for orthodontic treatment so my lower molars don't cave in by the time I'm 50 (where the costs will be more than twice what it will be now and that's not counting inflation).

Enough of my ranting... Back to critiquing!

--
Brecht- Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are
Fallout 2 - Destruction of the Enclave erased all trace of President Richardson from history. Now the title of President is used simply as a bogeyman to frighten children

Hrm... Well, the linebreaks are good and after knowing your intent with the material, I find it harder to critique your word choices.

"Though, for me, it has become easier imagining
myself a thin, refined southern gentleman"

I would put imagining on the next line so that the first line wasn't so readily conclusive about what has become easier.

Gee, I dunna have much else for ya.

--
Brecht- Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are
Fallout 2 - Destruction of the Enclave erased all trace of President Richardson from history. Now the title of President is used simply as a bogeyman to frighten children