I sat on my back deck with my brew and just read this.Some of the best and worst words come together there….right?

I enjoyed this piece.👍

This is chilling and deeply resonant. The way you transition from the ordinary calm of a morning brew to a dark, haunting spiral is so effective, leading right up to the sharp edge of “living in the USA.”

​The shift from “perfect memories” down the “woodchuck hole” into Shadowland is a brilliant and clever way to illustrate how easily we drift into isolation and self-absorption. It’s a dark and honest piece, just how I like my morning coffee. Great write!

This is brilliant, dear redzone, a masterpiece! Your imagery and the comparisons are very well crafted and breathtaking. There is nothing more threatening than to let the core of your being die while you are alive, and go on living unaware, merciless and without interest in the people around you.

I love, love ‘downhome” type writings. it’s my own start back in the day, so I have a fondness for what others can describe.
You succeeded wonderfully. The core value of what you were after stays true throughout the write. So the reader can sense that too, effortlessly.
Great stuff.

Cleverly penned, Ghosteen. Great write my friend. Appreciate you.

Damian

I enjoyed the beginning trickles of affection.
Then the dam broke at the confession!
I grinned the whole time:)

There’s a beautiful tension here –between ruin and tenderness, poetry and flesh. It’s as if love is both the wreck and the rebuilding, the prayer and the profanity. “Poetry passport will only travel me so far” might be one of the truest lines I’ve read about desire’s limits. Beautifully penned, Rob!

I like how the poem weaves together memory, myth, and landscape -using Kilimanjaro and the elephants as both witnesses and carriers of history, loss, and hope. I feel the weight of longing for someone gone, but also a sense of resilience, as if the mountain and the rain hold the promise of renewal and freedom.