American Dream

[Pete Ak]

I'm impressed... by the dignity of your response to a blunt yet honest critique! It's a brave thing to write a poem like this when the wounds are still raw. They have to be faultless to work which is a bit of a problem for me so I'm never likely to write one. It seems presumptuous to speculate on the presence of hallucinatory voices, even tho it's actually quite well done. One image jolted me - "three eyes" (one representing a bullet hole) yet it's followed by the mention of two thuds suggesting two shots, of course one may have missed but it feels an unnecessary inconsistency!
I'm certain there is a more terse, poem in there somewhere.