08-06-2015, 01:03 AM
Hey Tom-
Good story: beginning, middle, end-- all there.
Since I'm no grammarian I don't care that there are many probable sentence fragments, as the terseness of the tale moves it along quite nicely.
The only minor issue I have is the very end: "not him at all". I know that there is the implied phone call to inform the reader of the death, but "not him at all" came up a tad short (compared to the rest of the near perfect blitz style of this piece).
The poem is so full of images as to be almost overwhelming. In lesser hands this could easily have been a train wreck. Another fine example from you as to how to tell a story in a poem. In fact, you seem to know so much about this person that it reads like a (fictional) bio. But of course, it couldn't be your real and complete story, because you'd be dead and unable to tell it. That adds sort of a brain twist to it, which I also like.
OK- enough smoke up the ass blowing from me...
... Mark
Good story: beginning, middle, end-- all there.
Since I'm no grammarian I don't care that there are many probable sentence fragments, as the terseness of the tale moves it along quite nicely.
The only minor issue I have is the very end: "not him at all". I know that there is the implied phone call to inform the reader of the death, but "not him at all" came up a tad short (compared to the rest of the near perfect blitz style of this piece).
The poem is so full of images as to be almost overwhelming. In lesser hands this could easily have been a train wreck. Another fine example from you as to how to tell a story in a poem. In fact, you seem to know so much about this person that it reads like a (fictional) bio. But of course, it couldn't be your real and complete story, because you'd be dead and unable to tell it. That adds sort of a brain twist to it, which I also like.
OK- enough smoke up the ass blowing from me...
... Mark