The Chop Shop

It needs a working title. A "Sweet Factory" is a place, but it is a generic place, plus no one really says sweet as a synonym for candy anymore, do they?

Thematically I keep coming back to this idea of lost childhood. The military associations are there in the "chocolate army boots" and the "thirty-one caramel gun salute", but I am associating these things with the notion that this poem is invoking a kind of "adult world" vs. "child's world". I like the objective treatment of the imagery, which seems childlike.

I guess if I have any suggestions it would be to inject more voice into the poem. Who are "we"?

By simply dropping the we's from the poem I think that the problem of who are "we" would be solved. Not in life, but in this poem. I tend toward this shorter poem, especailly since the meaning is so ambiguous. That can work but there needs to be special attention spent on EVERY word. As is i do have problems connecting meanins from line to line.

"We" are the revised version of Anthony's poem...
this is Doctor McKinney's revised version, which is an anti-war poem..I am not in agreement with his version, seeing as I wanted a different interpretation (see the original for new comments). However, I do see where he gets the idea from the imagery..perhaps if I borrowed McKinney's suggestion of shortening lines, which I do like, and keep my meaning, then maybe this poem is salvageable. Otherwise, I am going to escape our "storm", as it is, so "we" can get on shore to another poem.

O.k. I know this is a wee bit behind schuedule, but here goes...

I like the shorened lines, it is much more succint without losing anything pertinent.

I enjoyed the candy imagery, especially the caramel guns, but I had a hard time reconciling the two worlds (military and childhood innocence) together.

I know that the military vibe that this version has taken on is not what you intended, but if you were considering keeping it, I think that it just needs a line to make military and childhood plausible to mix together.