Dean, Am delighted you've joined this new group. I hope you will find here the respectful support your tender efforts deserve.

My immediate impressions on this piece:

You've chosen courageously to write about pain, your own it seems. This is never easy.

By locking yourself into rhyme you've locked out the possibility of authentic emotion, of inner experience that can punch your reader in the belly, grab her by the heart. We get only a surface reading of the writer's inner geography. In this type of writing rhyme becomes a prison as opposed to a device.

I have a suggestion: try taking this poem apart, leaving the short, uniform rhyming lines on the floor and rewriting it in free verse - be wild, be careless, astonish yourself. Tell the whole story of the wounds and scars. Make a big mess. Make it too long or only five lines. Let the poem flow out of the belly rather than the mind. Then step back, see what you have and what you might do next with it.

You have my deepest respect and admiration for your willingness, your eagerness to write.

- akabukowski

Hi, Thanks so much for the "gentle" critique. Like I said at the top of the piece, I usually write to keep the demons at bay. I guess you are telling me I should let them run loose. Scary thought, but maybe I will give it a shot.

Peace,

Dean

I would call this "stage one" writing. It says so much and yet says nothing of what is trapped inside you. It generalizes when you may need to specify and accuse. It fears the devil in the details. It stays on the surface. It allows the reader to assume without a hint of what it is we are supposed to assume.

It unintentionally trivializes by limiting each issue to four beats. It diminishes you by not giving vent to the real issues under the simple rhymes. It doesn't allow your rage and pain to come to the surface because four beats is hardly enough time to be able to say something like, "I feel anger. No ... I ... feel ... rage." That is only eight beats but the freedom from rhyme allows it to give a clarion call to a soul to dig deeper, to explain, to demand, to cry, to scream. Writing is getting naked in front of God and stripping to your undies in front of the reader.

What you do is good but it is good only at a surface level. You want a more complex writing challenge? Here is one for you. If you accept the challenge, you must promise to follow through to the finish before you know what I am going to ask. It is an exercise in both writing and trust.

Are you in? I felt the message in your poem and hear the litany of unstated words in the "wounds and scars" line repeated over and over. First allow me to give you my answer to your message:

"Tell me what you cannot tell me so that tomorrow you might dream the dream you dared not dream."

Within that context, I am going to give you three words with a total of four syllables. I would like you to repeat these words, over and over until you are ready to answer them with a question I will give you at the end. You still in?

These are the words:

IT ISN'T FAIR.

Repeat them. Again.

When you have said them enough so that your mind is filled with answers, sit down at your computer and answer the question:

WHAT ISN'T FAIR?

What comes out now will be the next stage of writing. Before submitting it, make certain that you say what you need to say. Edit it. Make paragraphs out of it. Correct for spelling. grammar and punctuation because this is part of you others will be asked to read and comment upon as a piece of writing and a piece of you.

Or, you can choose to keep it to yourself and simply allow it to be a catharsis for your feelings, long withheld.

As my HS Latin teacher said before every test:

This is the time

To start to think.

So, take the paper,

Or drink the ink.

In those days, we used fountain pens and inkwells when taking a test. Not only did you have to study like a banshee but you had to remember to keep the inkwell filled and the nib of the pen free from detritus.

"Alea jacta est."

"All Gaul is divided into three parts."

Hi Milt, I really appreciate your comments. I don't think I need to take your challange. I already know what is not fair. I think naked in front of God will be the easy part. Stripping in front of the reader will be much harder, and may be pretty messy. Peace, Dean

You've got a knack for the blues, my man. Can you play the guitar or the piano? As you know, you don't have to be able to sing to sing the blues (see Howlin' Wolf). But you've got the rhythm goin' on. When I read something like this I can feel the groove and hear the melody. As with the other stuff you've posted, that's the direction I encourage you to go, brother. There are tons of great players out there that can't write lyrics...

comments on bubbadees comments: You say stripping before God is easier than standing naked before the reader. Nothing is truer. It sure is hard. No rush.

i can relate, but apparently this poem does not apply to ur specific point in life now. however, it should be a well read and understood piece of art because it throws life straight in ur face. i honestly appreciate every word, thank u..