swimming in the moroccan coast.

Hi Jas,

Wow. I really like this. Critique?

MICRO COMMENTS
>(cover your mouth and breathe through your pores,
>then dive, dive into this)

I was captured by these opening lines, but a little confused by the parentheses.

>his breaths were
>pants

I know this sounds terrible, but I had to read this three times before I realized you meant "pants" as in heavy breaths and not "pants" as in something you wear. Might be just me, but if you discover your other readers find it confusing, a word like "gasps" might clear up ambiguity.

>fly .

There is a space between "fly" and ".".

>she just crumpled into herself

This is purely personal taste (as are almost all critiques ), but I feel like personal possessive pronouns (not a real term I don't think >.<) like "himself" and "herself" are usually awkward. I think the line could be softer without it (e.g. "she just crumpled inwards").

>i burned honey today

I like this image, but honey itself has no shape, so I found it difficult to visualize it burning. I think some added shape (e.g. a spoonful of honey, a strand, a pan, a pool, etc.) might have guided my imagination as I tried to picture your words.

>(or something utterly cliche like that)

This was not my favorite line. Even so, I think I see why it's here. I wonder if there is a better way to say it?

>time stops and i think the clocks slide down the wall like syrup,
>fold over themselves like jelly and tick-tock their way to an explosion.

I like this line (especially "the clocks slide down the wall like syrup"), but I couldn't help but feel it did not quite belong.

>a paradox of sorts.

I did not like this. I felt like the entire poem communicated the same idea more completely, so that the summary is inelegant and unnecessary.

MACRO COMMENTS
I was thrown off by the absence of traditional mechanics, i.e., capitalization and punctuation. What is the reason for it?

I honestly read this a few times simply because I enjoyed it.

It made me think of something someone told me--though I have no idea who said it first--that "art is a lie that tells the truth." I wonder if that is the sort of idea behind this?

I think there is a truly stunning range of emotion here. I experienced horror, sympathy, and even humor ("i cannot remember the day i was born... that's ridiculous"). As a writer, I envy your ability to move--dare I say manipulate?--the reader.

Hope my review is useful!

And maybe you've twisted a subject into a tight knot that could circle on immensely.

Which makes for wonderful poetry.

I read this through a couple times and, at points, I suspect I had a bit of time digesting what I liked and what I didn't. Or if there were points that I really didn't like. I ended up second-guessing my opinions on the last part where you explained my first thought. That is, the paradox. The one thing about this poem is that it has such an interesting paradox that it really doesn't need to be explained in the end. That that stanza was a little useless.

But then again, it works itself out quite beautifully with that last line. It continues the circle yet again. And an interesting circle it is.

Sometimes I feel as if you're pushing extremely hard to make something out of nothing. Not that this was nothing, of course, but you definitely like to play on the idea of abstract thoughts. I found the same thing happen with oneirophobia (at least, as far as I remember the title being). You like to play with images that are, in themselves, contrary and open ended taking the reader in so many different directions that the facets of each direction don't seem to play much of a toll in the actual meaning of the poem. And, if the meaning of the poem has anything to do with the facets depicted.

Which made me conclude that, in spinning circles, I couldn't quite figure out what the intentions of this were and that, if there were some intentions played, I sure couldn't find them other than what was obvious. And even that wasn't quite obvious when it comparison with the fact that the poem plays on such topics as it does.

I find you fascinating, to say the least.

Maybe, one of these days, you'll elaborate on this further with me. I would particularly like to hear your thoughts on this, if I could ever get the chance.

let me tell you a story: there is a tree with my name on it
in the small woods on the brink of bouznika, a gulf city in morocco.
by that tree, i coughed blood and a boy eyed me with wolf eyes
and this time, he licked my lips and didn't wait for me to scream.