pulling "just" may strengthen the middle line last line challenge: as it stands, there's not much there; could you come up with an image that captures the feeling of the first two lines? yellow, brown, black white we are really just the same-- [image here] maybe something about river grass swaying underwater in unison or a fish school, etc ~mw

i have been packed up and thrown out chewed swallowed and jettisoned ~little man [feels more like therapy than poetry; hope it worked and helped you feel better]

There he was, my father, a soul so small you could blot HIM out with the dip of a pen. * reminds me of sylvia plath [read her?] but in her case daddy was so big he blotted her out and stuffed her headfirst in the oven beautiful brutal stuff

this explains poetry shows. * try to write some images evoke the senses * bad poetry makes conclusions for the reader, uses abstract language, explains. poetry shows

i got horribly hallucinogenicaly drunk on homebrew absinthe in mexico city. you can buy a handful of wormwood in the open air markets for a dollar. it's used in teas for digestive problems, incluiding the killing of intestinal worms. never got a louce never saw the green fairy [la hada verde] did enter a schitzoid world of vomit [green?] lesson: don't drink half a liter of home made absinthe. however good an idea it may seem at the time. * given that little history. i was delighted to find a ...

something this short must be proportionally sweet no room for dead weight opening line weak. would be better as the single word 'echoes' or 'echoes of bittersweet' or 'echoes of bittersweet whispers/whispers' *** i feel unsure of this line b/c of the abstraction 'absense' [ie, no image]: 'the keen scent of absence' ponder it a bit more and see if sum thin better occurs... *** 'wrapped in these jumbled covers' [think about pulling 'these'] *** 'naturally' does no work *** this kind of writing ...

nicely nuanced [still] moss! a great surprise at the end opens with "and" like EP's cantos [so much has gone before] would be hard to improve ready to publish, i think great story in wee

if you like the traditional english ballads [the form this poem is written in], you'd love emily dickinson. have you read her? she has a thick book of poetry in this form. at this point in the development of english verse [barring a resurection of dickinson] the traditional ballad remains only useful for humorous poems [vide ogden nash] if you love poetry and wish to get better ~ READ POUND --ezra pound. abc of reading

can you capture the feeling of "angelic" in an image? replace abstraction with the sensory cheers, mw

that's funny ~ like a haiku sestina ~ never read haiku so tongue in cheek, good humored and free of self importance. general show don't tell criticism: in penultimate line, i'd consider removing the telling word "profoundly", and instead show profundity. the word "profound" works satirically in the opening voice. but you seem to contrast the tone in the last three lines, which could be a potent device if they contained a profound image for ex. if any of this is unclear [or if you felt like co...