07-28-2016, 12:27 AM
This is a gangster poem without the verve, the depth, or the anxiety of the usual, and with a lot of carelessness with regards to punctuation (really, why only use periods in those last three stanzas? Why so many run-ons? And "life's no fairy tale"!) and the use of imagery (so the first stanza is a sort of prologue -- would be effective if the whole ditch angle wasn't clarified on second stanza after it, or if the ditch itself was what was central to the tadpole metaphor [not even a description of, what, the ghetto?] -- also, where the hell did that fairy tale thing come from?). Plus, the character gets to think about his childhood, then he thinks about joining the gang (tying it very, very poorly to a very, very shaky metaphor), then, what, he's free? And all we get on those instigating moments of violence are hints (and terribly, terribly vague ones -- what if our character was blood stained because, what, he shot himself or something? And is the killer next to him even related?)? No sense of movement, and nothing real to pull us in. Again, no verve, no depth, no anxiety -- big failure. Also, "hands collide" -- so he clapped? so he washed his hands?