Without

to Nothing.....you are so right I really enjoyed this piece sort of sad but yet not mostly intrepetition....great!!

Don't leave us, I haven't always got a comment on my work and I'm still here since July 2007. This poem is wonderful, please do not leave us, don't give up hope. I didn't want your poem to end, I enjoyed it so much. Thankyou for writing. Fleur

Finally! This poem has substance. Explanation. Heart. Honesty. Even apology. (ok, I'm not suppose to see that let alone make declaration.) This is something to talk about. We are all mush inside, and the harder the shell, the mushier the mush. And my shell is tough. My uncle was a bomb aimer on Sterling heavy bombers during WWII. Only a tiny fraction finished a whole rotation, the rest were killed, wounded, hospitalized or captured. At 20 missions there wasn't anyone who wasn't cracking up, whether it was obvious or not. He came back a bright shade of red: literally. His nerves (as they used to call it) peeling back the skin all on their own. He never truly recovered, although he lives still, quietly and a tad grumpy. I like this poem. It is serious, with few if any hollow places. The rhyming is addictive, isn't it. I do hope you try out its absence long enough to choose. But I see experiment even there. Men are so programmed into ideas of self-reliance, honour (and therefore shame), and toughness, that sometimes a mere voiced expectation sets off the fury. This legacy leaves us short on connections to tenderness, and if the primary relationship fails, we drift. When in need, men will receive the fewest social supports, probably not the children, the worst housing, the most expectations for financial support from others, and that thing we are built to do, the hunting, that's taboo. What may once have been a man's world is not recognizable any more. And it is a source of grief and bewilderment. I think you have evocatively told a story which helps us all to see each other: and that is the test isn't it. Congratulations, With affectionate regards, Brian

I made a short comment as I read it and wanted you to know I did...but Fleur is right please don't leave us...it is especially important that you stay and I need your poems...daily

Covers well despair and its abatement, Brians comments were, as usual, superb. Great to see you working in deep conceptual mode and your wordcrafting skills have improved terrifically. But of course there are buts. First line it would seem. Feels weak and contrived for rhyme, a trap you seldom fall into these days. The whole thing of writing in the second person is highly problematic, I've questioned your use of it before. Thank god you manage it here without coming across preachy or, heaven forfend, inspirational, but consider this: you use the word you or your 28 times! It really shoves it in your readers face, almost as if you are dis-associating yourself from it. I urge you to have a good look at that. I am not sure of the meaning of ending to did you mean ending too ? cheers, Jess Forever unwrapping the eternal present.