wow, action packed poem! A bit too long for my taste; I feel that it would pack a harder punch if you were to shorten it. You have some really good imagery, though, and it makes for an interesting read.

I'm afraid my heavy breath come dawn isn't that sweet... that aside, I enjoyed the composition and flow of your poem.

Good to see you back, my long-distance amigo! I like this, very catchy and ever so slightly surreal; personifying the gauges works very nicely. Line 4 feels a little...awkward though. 'Leaving naught to keep' felt much more archaic than the rest - but then again, I can't think of anything you might replace it with.

I thought this was going to be a collection of haikus when I first saw it. I'd have to agree with ecargo and Niphredil, the rest of it is very pretty. The final stanza in particular brought a smile to my face.

What is 'the jessiness of Jess' in not understanding this the whole poem becomes merely words.

as in the bob and tom show? They're funny, man. I swear to god they are.

This is nice, in a 'Hi ho, hi ho it's off to work we go!' kind of way - it's the sort of poem that needs communal speech. I like the semi-rhyme in stanza 2, it's subtle enough to not override the rest of the poem, while still helping the rhythm along.

'In such peculiar concert/with your silly laugh' did it for me. A simple poem which manages to end up greater than the sum of its lines.

This screamed NYC at me. I hope that helps.

Spew

I've read the stuff you've posted so far, and although it's pretty simple I really like it. Somehow you manage to make the repetition work in print without music, so for that I must offer my congratulations! It's really hard to get lyrics to appear as effective without music (by their very nature, I suppose). Very bluesy...definitely a good thing! Do you sing/play instruments professionally? I'm listening to Beth Orton at the moment =D

This is cool - 'kinder-coloured plastic', 'gravity's fool', 'crab clawed', 'trick of undoing' etc. are great to read; you always give something new in your poems. I love the contrast of 'superpowered/old engine', it works brilliantly for young yet exhausted muscles. 'Old Doubt'...sounds like an ale... =D Tell how you prevailed; I'm in the mood for good news!

Wow! This is extremely well written! The flow was wonderful and your delivery very powerful.

Very cool. I like your truckin' poems. I like the end rhymes here too. One suggestion: lose the archaic "naught"--just recast the line to keep "keep" (or find another line with an "eep" word at end). The "naught" really doesn't fit the rest of the poem, and the sense is a little squidgy anyway.

I enjoyed this alot. It was very interesting and had a nice flow to it.

Cool blues, although without the music it left me wanting more...and a little more innovation.

'black ink/bitter...' makes me think you're talking about Guinness. I'm really not sure what to make of this...particularly the last stanza is open to many, many 'comic' interpretations. Was that intentional? I'll need to have a think about this before I can post anything of any use.

Hee--it's like every blues song ever written condensed into a handful of lines.

Makes me think of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, all of those incredibly cool dark rides you guys have; a girl on a ride crying. Your repeating lines are pretty good, Ranger, and the imagery here is well done. Not sure about churl and merle, but otherwise, this is very cool.

Extremely cool indeed. I loved "Flashing lights become a string of pearls"... for some reason, the initial image it conjured up was of the glowing circle the lights of a ferris wheel would describe if it were spinning very fast... and then slowing down, until each light is individually distinguishable, a string (well, more like a ring) of pearls.