I think it would be better not to start with "there are," and to rearrange the sentence for a stronger beginning. "Cellophane smoke" is descriptive, but it adds little besides smokiness to the smoke. I don't know what you mean by "trading storms" or "swarming jay." The birds (jays) don't normally swarm, and how do the other kind?

Metal lords scorch the clouds . . majestic shrouds - good line.

A fine remembrance. What more is there to say.

It is immature, as the title says, for several reasons. A mature war protest would consist of sterner stuff. My question is why did you write it?

Do I smell rancor on the ranker? I know it’s poemranker, not poetranker, but it’s hard to be objective on this one. First the easy stuff: why the “>” and the double space before “Jesus”? Then the logical stuff, like how can cataracts be silver and gold? And the grammar stuff like, “Israeli,” “Palestinian” and “Texan.” But what intrigues me about this is the prayer of David, a man after God’s own heart, who said, “Strike all my enemies in the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.” It’s taken a long time, maybe, and the answer isn’t as expected, and it makes it look a whole lot like something else, but who knows the ways of God. Anyway, you’ve well expressed an angst.

I like the blare/Blair inuendo, if it is one - works for me. The "eons come undone" line reads as if some new thing is going on - new ways of doing it maybe. The thousand rockets equation to a thousand hopes makes it look like every rocket kills a hope, which is far from true. "past it's masters' keeping" shows the crude technology, and the rest shows how it is working.

Are you a poetry junkie?

Ah, Kinsale, of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, a hill town with narrow streets beside a harbor. It’s mostly pubs, restaurants and tourists today, but it was the last outpost for ships about to attempt the dangerous Atlantic crossings during the potato famine. And to sit there in a pub with tipper tipping against a bodran, singing Red-head Mary, Guinness in hand, yes, it makes the world go away. You’ve captured it well.

It Won’t Stay Buried

Etched in my flesh,
burned in my brain,
tainted memory,
the image of you.

Haunting thoughts,
one after another,
you and you.


When blurred vision comes clear,
I shudder at the apparition,
staring back,
into me,
into my soul.

it won't let go.
Never,
Ever.

Really?

Your last one, with its funky mis-grammar, made sense to me, but this one doesn't. It looks like as collection of scattered thoughts.

I can’t get much into this. Not because it’s badly written, (it's not) only because I’ve heard versions of it so many times. Isn’t it the way of clichés – they were mostly clever once, til “time stood still” on their cleverness, yet another cliché.

realizing some highness likely accompanied the writing of this, I'll go easy. "Falling with the devastation
of a snowflake on the ocean." is a good line, but it's not a sentence, and I don't see how it ties in. And the "sentence" above it needs a comma or something, unless my highness equals yours.

Thanks, Ranger and ALChemy, for your comments. I've awakened today in less of a stupor, and revised the thing. I hope it makes more sense.

I wish I could figure this out. It sounds like it might be interesting.

It's nice you put this in the mother's mind - hopeing her sons will return safe and hoping they will not kill unnecessarily. Computerized killing to the backdrop or "killing music" - a tactic that gets a soldier through the day, gets the job done, and him - emotionally uninvolved. A good take on it.

One of many Bush-war-slams these days. The unusual thing about this one is "chemical weapons." Just how do you mean that?

I like the straightforward, no nonsense, presentation. While some may complain of poetic negligence, sincerity is there. For that I’d give a 10. But since the poetry, for what little poetic excellence is really worth, is worth only a 5 in my opinion, have an 8. And enjoy your son.

So many images going on here! The first line leads us to God, the king, in a red mantle. The next three lines show the observer’s disgust with God, or with literature that falls as waste, or both. Verse 2 continues the diatribe or disgust. Verse 4 gets back to the “portrait” in the title, continuing the downward description. The last verse is the most intriguing, an interesting view of it.

Funny! Funny!

The first two verses are funny and lead me to want these "words" you speak of, and which the title is so elusive about. And though the following verses are funny, they fail to deliver what seems an incredibly possible punch.