Dear Terence,

Thank you, or, to stick with that brevity, should I just say "Yup" ?

The def of fell I am using is down the bottom of the post, but here :

fell: adjective: (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering

So I am assuming a noun to follow, such as men, or people.

Love
Alan

Dear Tim,

Thank you.

Regarding the "every", I am trying to say that all ways of checking it will fail - "any" would have been a better word but is already used close by. Leaving it out would seem to mean that only 1 check would fail - am I making sense ?

settle their changes as they will - I intend to mean that whatever they try to do, they will fail.

Should I say glad that, or sorry for, making you think ? lol

Love
Alan

Hi Alan,

18 required words in 15 lines, yikes. That's bold. So many of your words are so non-descript and/or abstract.
i like the use of quoin as a metaphor of the spiritual world. That is an image i can easily grasp. 

One nit i have is i think you could remove "every" in S2/L5.

i also didn't understand this line:

Quote:

But this could be because i haven't had my morning Joe.

i had to put my thinking cap on, but i enjoyed the poem. 
Let us know about possible variations of words and i'll be back, 

~tim

THE QUOIN

Really, everything is uncertainty,
nothing is known.
So-called truth
reaches somewhere
only half-way in.

The rest of what is occurring
is as a building not tested
in any medium, a fragment
that will not surrender
to every empirical investigation.

Let the fell sing songs of sin,
settle their changes as they will :
among their crass certainties
they will not find an answer,
for this lies in the quoin known as the soul.

Alan McAlpine Douglas

(Challenge words : really everything uncertainty nothing truth reaches somewhere
occurring building tested medium fragment surrender fell sing settle changes among)

quoin: noun:   the keystone of an arch
fell: adjective:   (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering