driving .

This is Kaos here for a review.

So from what we kind of discussed before that you sort of have a problem with length and most of the problems are about length and needing to prune it down. I think that you can do this without cutting out all of the repetition, because some of it is done well, but this poem is all over the place. It tends to jump around a lot and I can see there being two different things where one follows the driving in the poem, and the other sort of perspective that's here.

You use a lot of repetition in this poem, and I think you need to put a bit more thought into why you're doing it or the effect that it has on the poem. Saying something once is just a statement, but saying something two or three times adds emphasis. There's also the variable of how spread out this sort of repetition is, how it comes into the poem, and if you're adding anything new or following up on the concept that you had developed before. You can say "I like ice cream" one time, but if you say it two or three times, you really do like ice cream. That's how I view it and that's how I kind of judge the imagery and the metaphors here in terms of importance of the poem and overall theme. The madman and karachi skies appear a lot in the poem, so I assume that they're more important than some of the other stuff here.

The first stanza does good at setting up for the rest of the poem and I think it covers most of the stuff that is repeated in the rest of the poem, which I think you could use this first stanza for the function of that. It uses the karachi skies and the madman and the driving all together, but the narrative of it feels a little messy. Try and give the reader some more space or time to process through all the imagery because it does get a little thick in some of the places. This doesn't mean it's exactly /bad/ or anything, it just feels like that there are too many things going on all at once.

The imagery is easily the highlight of the poem, though. It's very vivid in what it's trying to say but sometimes it feels like it's always transforming or sometimes doesn't have reason but it ends up being okay. I sometimes shake my fist at imagery for not always going along with logic but it also gives a sense of the poem. The poem feels like things are always transforming and I don't know if you intended for this to happen but you keep developing things into different things but this is also how it becomes the mess that it is. It can be rough around the edges but it doesn't really serve to be a poem that's clean or anything and I don't think it should be.

I don't know if there's a specific name for stuff like this, but you used the same lines and switched them around and I think if you decided to make this that type of poem, that could also work? Just a thought because this reminded me of one of those poems.

The part about the crazy waters and the names didn't really work well with me and I thought it was one of the things you could probably cut. Specifically I'd say to cut lines 39-46 and try and rework it around there (I might be wrong with my counting so it's the part about the crazy waters and "the names of myself" if that helps any more).

The end of the poem is where it was weakest for me and I didn't really like to think that it ended there because you had all these different things earlier in the poem that you could have decided to end on, like a few more lines that addressed the karachi skies and the madman and what ended up happening, sort of wrapping up what had happened before. The rest of the imagery just is relentless with what it has to say and keeps going without any form of remorse and I love it. The main part that would help is to give more thought into why you do something in this poem or why you use repetition or /why/ you use a certain line. Overall, I really enjoyed this poem.

I hope I made sense and helped, have a great day!

Aye, hair.

I love political and war and love and coming of age meshed together. It has a very soundtrack-of-the-millennials vibe to it which is to be appreciated by millennials as we're the first to hate war since the isolationists. All the same, you're looking at American actions with an outsider eye and I appreciate that as well. It's fresh and unafraid of censure.

Line 19, nix the second 'teach me'. Flow destruction. Repeat of the incident much later on, couplet before the end when you repeat the hazard. If you're in love with the technique, ignore me. If not, burn it and pave over the ashes.

I'm tempted to say that your length betrays you, but it's also the case, always, that your meandering style creates an experience that is something to get lost in. Your voice and stylistic choices create a full world for the reader to immerse themselves in and just exist for a while. I sat here in Karachi for a while. I stood by the roadside while your breaks squealed. While he drank.

And that phrase you chose is so raw and unforgiving and approprié. I was in the reddened skyline when he raped the earth. And it was horrific.

Still, your style carries the fluidity of silk through horrific concepts, and that's something most don't even care to do because their emotions lead them elsewhere. They write about war? Their style comes off angry. International 'counter'terrorism? Rage, choppiness. But you pull this off with aplomb and I think it's because of your length. Double-edged sword.

The ending is quite horribly weak compared to the meat of the poem, and I'd much prefer to find you ending on a stronger image rather than a reference to hell's dog being dead. It mismatches the imagery remaining in the piece quite harshly and makes me wonder if it came from a different piece entirely.

Beyond that, though, you're solid. Give attention to your stylistic choices that are heavily stylized, reinforce the joints and the rear plating, and you should have something bulletproof.

Ty