Love is War- Critique Please :)

[Todd]

I liked this a lot and could see it as a great spoken piece.

Oh, and hi Kb...I know you've been around for a bit but welcome to the site.

I like how you take an old familiar somewhat cliched title and redeem it with concrete imagery. A couple minor points to start with: The double spacing detracts. It may just be the copy paste when you brought the poem here, but if it isn't I'd revert to single spacing.

Love is War-


My father once told me that love is a lot like war--I don't think the repetition is necessary given the exposition done by the title. Maybe more simply "Something my father once told me"

And, at first, I didn’t believe him


But you’ve had me shell-shocked from our first lip-lock

I want to march my fingers through the landmines of your spine--love the image

A drummer boy carefully patrolling, treading, dragging--drummer boy is a nice introduction of sound you get the sense of stretching an imaginary vertebra popping like the tap of a drum. It's subtle and nice for that

his feet across each hilly vertebra to the beat of charges exploding--nice internal rhyme. I also like hilly vertebra

Detonating them one by one, by one, by one creating a growing cacophony of claymore cadence--this may be a bit overwritten. I like the one by one by one thing, but it might be better shortening this. Maybe after the final one simply "in claymore cadence". This may be just me but sometimes when a poem flourishes too much it feels self conscious and stripped of the power of the image. The images feel too nice to allow that

That starts way inside your voice box and ends as vibrations I can feel shake the air like a 747--instead of I can feel maybe that. I can feel is implied. I feel 747 is wrong here. It's a commercial aircraft need something more military

kicking up a dust tornado picking me up and dropping me

back to the first time your shaky voice said “I love you.”--These two lines work well



Together we are camouflaged as one--again original nice use of the extended metaphor

Our skin burns like napalm. We become each other’s victim of arson.--You may not need the Our. Good image. I really, really like the second phrase here

Our snare-drum hearts combine to create the tempo of helicopter blade wing beats.--If you could find a way to connect this drum line to the earlier drummer boy line you might create some nice resonance. The helicopter blade part is a nice touch to bring out the sound with complimentary imagery

You can tell the way ricochet from the trail of your lingerie--While I like where this goes with the trail of lingerie being discarded, I think the you can tell the way ricochet feels really awkward. It needs some attention to smooth it out

from the couch, through the hallway and to the bedroom where we stay.

Switching up formations for diverse unification, lay siege to temptation,

tongues tasting each other’s radiation for moments of pure recreation and salvation.--I like this entire sequence though I would consider ending this last line on radiation. Again feels stronger without the final flourish

We lay still trying to salvage the wreckage of our battle beat bodies--I don't think you need we lay still...though just an opinion

Shrapnel of each other imbedded in our skin so far, so deep that it won’t ever be reached,--I don't think you need so far. Nice image though

no matter how long we dig the trenches.--great expansion of the image. I like this


You’ve got me thinking we are the lost battalion sitting stubborn atop this hillside--Again, don't think you need the lead up of You've got me thinking. You also could probably cut sitting

Fighting to pay bills and practicing our pinch penny drills--Maybe more simply Paying bills with our pinch penny drills

And the whole word has forgotten our forty

But that’s alright because I’ve got your six

We are starving while fighting off artillery and carving deliberately into the sides of barricades our last wishes--maybe last wish barricades

Wishes of tank reinforcements, flank rescues, enemy miscues, food for our famined platoon, our just married balloons, friendly cannon booms, mustard gas mishaps, “Mom, please send some cash”, bullets for our ammo stash, auxiliary infantry, correct missile trajectory and most of all just a little taste of real life victory.--love this barrage at the end with the strophe break


Because victory tastes like love and love tastes like war.--satisfying conclusion

I hope the comments will be helpful to you. I really enjoyed the piece.

Best,

Todd