[Jim Moonan]

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It’s definitely a good piece of writing, definitely not a subject for everyone’s eyes/ears. It’s energized, visionary and apocalyptic. It calls to mind some of the landscapes/decay Allen Ginsberg described in Fall of America. I read quite a bit of him when I was younger and this poem put me in a similar state of mind. Bukowski also, in mood. It could be a digested/regurgitated/condensed telling of Dante’s Inferno or Purgatorio. I can’t say I enjoyed it. I'm disturbed by it. I am first and foremost a reader of poetry. I typically respond to poems here simply to report what the poem made me feel. I typically don’t get too much into critiquing a poem unless my reader-eyes detect something. Afterall, it’s a workshop.

I am of two minds: first, the writing is sharp-edged and highly charged. As all have said, it's an engrossing read. You have a fluid voice that flows with imagery. Second, it makes me gasp at the slide into dereliction, the depravity of it. It’s as if you’ve written your own otherworld. There is a descent. There is also an ascent. The reader is taken down a labyrinth-like dim underworld that is either perversely pleasing or disgusting, depending on who you are. It’s as if we are being led through a wasteland of a society that is self-destructing, decaying, feeding on the hedonistic nature of ourselves (which historically has never turned out well), turning our back on higher aspirations. It’s full of hopelessness. I’m a hopeful guy, so I can’t personally relate, but I do find the poem a gut-wrenching look into a state of apocalyptic existence. No love. No compassion. No connection. No cohesion.

Nice writing.

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