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This is powerful and haunting.  My favorite lines:  


 
 
like some paper thin walls that come back to echo , to reverberate, not fade
 
that dripping sink, our first place, no longer a comfort, my fist through a wall
 
my way to recall, a few minutes more, just to lie with you, in the bed, we made




One minor grammatic/spelling quibble
 

my right to saver
   

Is to change \"saver\"  to \"savor.\"

Time is a wife-beater

the great world eater

who batters us

& scatters us

even when he pulls

the punches


Men make monsters

not nearly as frightening

as the matchstick-thin

man with a sickle

who kills us with waiting


Sometime he takes

those young enough

to think themselves immune

while the remainder linger

eroding between the tick

of remorseless clock hands


Death is coming

it is the death

of fat accusing fingers

and frog-faced men

who kill us with drudgery

and a lack of imagination


We rent these bodies

the shell of an intellect

that cannot conceive

a better way than rent

taxes, horseless carriages

that carry us anywhere

but where we wish to go


We are all Cain

We are all Abel

We kill the brother

and are killed by our brother

Inherit violence from

the father

Leach nourishment

from the mother


 
In a world of dust and deserts,

sunlight, snakes and sisters

insects and mountains of garbage

where rain falls on the just

and unjust, on babes and lechers

in homes that become prisons

and streets that become home...


are all hopes false?

or is hope the only cure?

the seed from which we can grow

a better end


I don't know if we ascend

into long halls of light

or descend into endless

tunnels of the night

Maybe its better that way

If all we know for certain

is all we have is today

Thanks mperry.  The work of the Beats, neo-beats and other wrtiers like bukowski who share a similar vision are among my favorites.  Kerrouac, Ginsy, D. A. Levy, Tom Waits, the aforementioned Bukowski, etc.

SpaceMonkey, this is an exceptional pantoum and I know from experience how difficult it can be to write a successful one.  Its one of the most difficult and restricting forms to work with.  Somewhere I have one lying around that I wrote for a poetry class called \"The Shitstall Poet.\"  Perhaps I will post it for a laugh if I find it.  This though,  this is a trully great pantoum.  Bravo! 

Quite interesting.  To me the form itsself implies a feeding frenzy.  Nicely done. 

This is epic.  Love your word choice and the extensive vocabulary that informs it.  

This is a very poignant piece, an echo and reflection of what you are going through.  Nothing bursts our bubbles quite like the loss of loved ones. 

i\'ve sucked
a desert\'s draught
of dry smoke.

heard the silent
sibulent hints
of cancerous innuendo
that sleeps between
dried leaves, nearly
2 decades of plodding ash.

once we thought this was cool;
that we 
called the tune
& the bugler would lead
us to reason.

science
and bitter experience
has shown
we have been lead
only to an early grave.

but at least we looked good
on the way there--
and for a moment, death too,
was something to be laughed at
with each heedless breath.

it is a romance
as much as madness,
this courtship of death,
an image in a cracked mirror.

cigarretes
have taught us much
about the lost art
of dying gracefully (& dis,)
and of the things we miss

while choking on regret.

You are tackling a technique near and dear to my hear, and you have done it masterfully.  There are some very clever lines in this collection as well.  My personal favorite is:If every blade of grass       were a miniature spear what a war the world       would wage against us!



My only advice would be that these devices and techniques are often at their best when employed with subtly.  However, such advice would be moot in this piece when the very point is extravagance with the employment of the technique.  So bravo!  I enjoyed this collection a great deal.  Also, the implication of movement implied by the forms in your garden collection added an extra layer of effectiveness that heightened the overall effect. 

I have spent the day working on papers and studying.  This is my last semester before graduation and its pretty hectic.  In the next two weeks I have four papers, plus a 15 page case study and a fifteen minute class presentation due, two final exams, and the four-hour exit exam that  I have to pass to graduate is also looming on the horizon.  I\'m not too stressed about the exit exam since I have maintained all A\'s while in the program, but it is a pretty big deal regardless.  So my posts in the next few weeks will be a bit scarce.  I will still probably find the time to post a poem here and there but I don\'t have a lot of time to post in-depth feedback, so if you haven\'t recieved any comments from me on your work, that\'s why.  I will try to play catch up and provide more feedback when I have the time.

Trade the foodstamps for kids
Raise the glass-ceiling bids
Char the charcoal chicanery!

She\'s gone, looking for the next
Modern Masterpiece to replace 
the untrain\'d Disasterpiece
of comic timing

Sic of bravely miming placidity
bringin\' it on home to model
Lingerie for the good emperor
(who sits in state
clad in urine-stain\'d boxers)

\"Honey, were you expecting
Poly-Esther pants, 
fishnet stockings,
A cat-scratch beaver?\"

Go give her regards
To the Narrow Way
To the raised thumb
The ideas hitching rides
On Cereberal Highways
of Live-in-Maids everywhere

No more looking
Acting, selling the drama
to the traumatose
milktoast who can\'t drink
the Milk of Life
being lactose intolerant

\"Remember these breasts?
Wanna tease them?
Please them?\"

Its too late to nip the Teats of Power!
Domestic skullduggery
has its hour,
Marital Apocalypse

This housewife\'s hungry;
A tweleve-story tenement/tourist
trap comes alive
w/curses that creep
like ivy across cooked concrete--
Identified Flying Objects:
golf clubs, trophies & polo shirts,
pin-strip\'d pants and pre-coital condoms
gain the power of flight.

Her feet were soon to follow.

I sit alone
in my gray cubicle
no windows to remind me
I am not being properly
compensated
for the life I am losing
The world is passing me by
Dogs and Daughters
are dying
Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Brothers
dying
while my boss
carelessly cuts, dissects
my life in sequence
for easy consumption
by the corporation
seconds turn into minutes
minutes into hours
hours into days
days into weeks
weeks into months
months into years
years into decades
he is eating my life
one thin, worn dime
at a time
and I am told
when I am old
enough to need it
social security 
will no longer exist
They will put
we geezers out 
to pasture
w/ no healthcare
no life insurance
all of our loved ones
will be dead
but we can eat
all the grass we want.

The lines Liam quoted are great and I love the first stanza as well:

Although i fight with change, 
I am a child of it.
Struggling with it.
Wrenching free of my parentage.

Your word choices throughout the poem are strong, and really serve to accentuate the meaning of the poem.  I find your use of the word \"wrenching\" particularly effective in this stanza.

Another great piece!

I love the use of alliteration, the strong rhymes, and the overall flow of this piece.  Its a strong piece line by line, but my favorite part would have to be:
 \"What power drips in ink on this bleak leaf,This strength to end the life of saint or thiefAnd keep the mobs immobilized in fear?\"

This is masterful.  I look forward to reading more of your work! 

Hey everybody.  Charles Bowman here, known as HomesickAlienPoet/HAP on the boards.  I was an active member of the community in the days of the first P & A project and am glad to be a part of this rejuvenated incarnation of the site.  I am a poet primarily, though I occasionally dabble in fiction as well.  I have a cousin who is actually making a living as a writer, (screenplay) as well as directing and acting.  His name is Jeffrey Reddick and he is the creator of the Final Destination series.  He has a new movie that will be coming out soon called \"Dead Awake\" so check it out if you are a fan of FD.  (End shameless plug).  As for myself, I went back to college last year and will be graduating from Lindsey Wilson with a bachelor\'s degree in human services and counseling this December.  After graduation, I am going to immediately rollover into the master\'s program.