[Michael Cantor]

Too well crafted? Oh, I can fix that.

[Ken Brownlow]

Michael, don't un-craft this part


for everything that one time seemed insatiable;
and eventually the skin will yellow
and the nerves below the knees feel dead,
and we are again children,
huddled in the kitchen,
shades pulled against the river

it's depressingly good

[Ken Brownlow]

If bad is sad
then this poem's
a tragedy

[Erik Olson]

Scourge

I am myself my own havoc and pain,
look on all sides for some respite in vain.
d

[Ann Drysdale]

19th July 1944

That was the day when there was too much sky.
Nobody came to get her out of bed
and when she went by herself to the window
yesterday’s everything had disappeared.

Everybody was busy and shouting
and when at last the feet came on the stairs
something inside insisted she should run
across the room and jump back into bed.

Someone came in and sat down on the bed
and said the little boy across the road
wouldn’t be coming over for a while.
He and his Mum had had to go away.

He wanted her, they said, to have Blue Bear
to keep for him. But Blue Bear had got wet
although it wasn’t raining and he smelt
of the fireplace first thing in the morning.

Alone again, she went back to the window.
How odd of Raymond, when he went away,
to take his house with him but leave Blue Bear.
She didn’t like that there was too much sky.

[Aaron Poochigian]

Ann, you ripped my heart out on Saturday morning with this ‘Vengeance weapons' (‘Vergeltungswaffen’) poem. You get the child's perspective just right.

[Roger Slater]

Wow, Ann, you've disproved your theory that a poem can be too well-crafted to be depressing. It's the extraordinary craft that brings the emotion of this poem home.

[Erik Olson]

Call of Duty [A Rondelet x 2]

In smoky chambers
was where their stars and plaques were dealt.
In smoky chambers
their errant raid slew honest neighbors
swifter than thought, the point man felt
threatened, loosed leaden death that dwelt
in smoky chambers.

In smoky chambers
they brought their 'man down' who was felled
in smoky chambers.
Iron-hearted heroes in their numbers,
they formed deep rows, all seen to melt
for him whose widow wailed and knelt
in smokey chambers.
g

[Shaun J. Russell]

The Bottom

I'm down here at the bottom,
looking up, I see no light;
my optimism's faded
and I've lost the will to fight.

[Erik Olson]

Nha. Never mind.