yes, 'flob alob flob weeeed' is my favourite bit of bill and ben gibberish too.

The end is a touch disappointing, other than that excellent stuff.

So you have a problem with islamic terrorists and christians dropping cluster bombs and people dying and that members of the army do what they are told.

Big whoop.

"Thus is more than you can aim unto," Is a strange thing to say for a tweenager. Must have been watching Dawson's creek I guess.

I get the feeling of someone moving into young adulthood. There is apprehension in 'make a wanton of me' (I am guessing you use wanton in its precise sense of unchaste).

The relationship between the tweenager and the narrator is unclear. The same person, a younger sister maybe.

There is an elegance in the poem, a clear progression and a certain feeling of reflection. Very good.

The delivery is a touch fluffed, but I like the concept.

If you get really good people will slag this type of thing off as trite. Ignoring that criticism, I like the sounds. Especially picture and measure.

A bit heavy in adjectives especially the opening line.
Could do with a bit more happening with them e.g my pidgeon toes creep..., my bird-narrow eyes watch... etc.

From line four onwards this is pretty good.

Perhaps needs to be a bit punchier. Like 'steal glances at unbecoming' and the final couplet.

A little confused, perhaps because you change from relating a story of a friend almost to first person shouting at the whore.

The abstemiousness bragged its supremacy is intriguing, but again the justification seems bogged down in badly managed sentence structure.

Like this too, the incense bit was confusing yes. And 'The almost-steel night thieves gold.' I can see where you are going but as a single sentence is difficult to grasp. But yes did I say I like it.

Cute enough nice sounds, the last two lines of each verse are a nice innovation.

Groovy, of course the convention of a haiku is to have two inextricably linked images. Here the link is between the body of the poeme and the title I think.

(so much) kind of redundant. (i n f o r m a t i o n) spaced seems almost entirely pointless. Other than that ace. The voice is especially clear.

Afraid is a very weak impact word. You should try to avoid labelling emotions, use image to portray.

Also this could do with cutting down, make the reader think over the words rather than read through to get to the punch.

Spellcheck would not go amiss.

If you wrote this in negrese it would better convey that this poeme is about some negro (you) slagging of 'honkies' for misappropriating his 'culture'. Which would be incredibly deep.

Also it is axl rose. There is an easy anagram to help you remember for goodness sake.

Not sure the leap from subservient to motherly is a logical one. Don't like alpha-male it is inelegant. The time in this is confusing. You talk of how you knew him in high school then claim many years on he is still not shaving.

First verse does not make a whole lot of sense.

1) Who is this new squaw the past has forgotten, how does past have a wife.

2) To consumate their raven joining-- 'their' can only refer to the squaw and the past. So how come they are being joined when his new squaw has been forgotten.

3) How can was ever be new, it is the past.

Verse 2, talking about christ as an abstraction invented by people to fulfill a need is just trite. It has been said a million times before, and offers a side of the argument but no insight.

Sliver: 19jun04--9:10am

'no matter how hard we try, I'm a mutton shunter we will always reveal at least a part of who we are in whatever we write'

Like the first two verses in terms of their lyricism. And most of the rest of it, its just the parts of the poem 'revealing yourself' seems a bit removed. Especially verse three.

The sound is not bad, nothing too tortured in terms of bad grammar or whatever. Americas majesty and 'like shangri-la' are kind of disappointing though.