A very powerful and entertaining poem! The repetition of "I am the American Dream" is emphatic but not overdone, and I get chill bumps thinking how great this would be read aloud. Fine work!

What is a "cherubim agenda"? "Honeyed milk repose"? Your poem does manage to rhyme rather well, but odd descriptions like these tend to distract more than entertain readers. Couple of small errors: Should be lovers, not lover's, and lightning, not lightening. The last line is probably the most poetic of all - certainly very powerful, understandable, and pleasing to the ear.

Lost love I think is a staple topic for every poet - whether that's because poets are more unlucky in love than others or because poets are simply more expressive is uncertain at this point, but the fact remains that there are very many lost love poems. Knowing that, it is important to realize that writing a "lost love" poem is more challenging to a poet. You must differentiate your piece from the plethora of other poems that speak on heartache in order for it to catch the eye of a reader or ...

Very interesting rhyming scheme and real sense of isolation in this poem. Good job.

I would love to hear this on the radio! Already a good piece, I think with a little tweaking it could be even better. In the first verse you say "Someday like a diamond it'll shine", but then in the second, you switch to "Someday like a diamons gonna shine" - I think this would work better if in both verses you said "Someday like a diamond it'll shine". Thanks for sharing!

Wow! I got chills reading this one. The repetition of "Answers are not allowed here" is very effective. The device in the second stanza "Dark alleyways summon you by name" - that of pulling the reader themselves into the scene - is also a very good idea. The piece works well heard aloud or read in sweet, sweet silence. Thanks for sharing!

Given your "Notes to reviewer", I won't get into the grammar/spelling issues that need re-working in piece, I will just say that I think some copy editing would immediately make this more accessible to a wide readership. Alright, so enough of that. Now to me, a long-time bookstore afficianado, everything you're describing makes perfect sense - I've seen it all before. But I wonder if somebody who wasn't familiar with the many joys of national frozen macchiato shoppe/bookstores would get your ...

I imagine this poem working really well read aloud- good flow, good images- but reading it on a page, the repetition of "This is my rifle/this is my gun" is a little annoying, though I imagine it could be fabulous performed in person. Interesting piece.

I must admit, I am at somewhat of a loss as to how to proceed. So, I'm going to give you my personal, non-scripted answer, and hope that it does what I intend it to do. I work in a creative field, and I can tell you, one thing you can be ABSOLUTELY sure of when you do anything remotely different or creative, people are going to feel they have the right to tell you EXACTLY what they think of it (especially if they think something negative, and they usually do). So, as an artist (or just as a h...

The only thing I wish was different about this poem is I wish it were longer. Simply splendid.