All Comments on 'Denizens: Ben'

has been mentioned in Tuesday reviews.

Two small observations/objections. I'm not sure why, but the first verse seems a little loose in comparison to the balance of the poem.

The second is the double "black" at the end.

More demons here than ever before. The beat slipped a little for me but I danced on through it. The end was

an added attraction as always.

a bit, almost seems like a tv show I've seen. But you tell it so well Mutt, I couldn't help but follow it through. Looking forward to the next one.

*thermometer finds ben stone cold dead

That is all. Just damn.

(thermometer left at default and does not reflect my vote)

some of the lines are quite striking / and it is moody, which is not an easy trick to pull off / there is a lot of language here that deserves praise /

You never cease to amaze me.

>^..^<

Holy shit! <---my first reaction.

This poem is strong, and written so well that I wonder if you know the character of the poem personally. If not, this poem displays your ability to think critically about other people and imagine what motivates them. A strong, dark poem-- bitter coffee with all the dregs. And oddly, that is a good thing because it's a taste one never forgets.

This is great..

"Ben bagged the girl's mother and busted the boyfriend

and tossed the girl into the state care machine."

The whole thing has a lot going for it, except the last line mystifies me. If Ben is black,(this seems to be emphasized) this line "He'd talk about niggers in front of the bus boy." would be a useless.

Read this on through with your mask of political correctness in place and watch your reaction change when you come to the end. Powerful social commentary.

This poem was mentioned in the Archival Review thread, in a picking through Lit's archive of over 37,000 poems.

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If anybody is still interested all these years later:

Ben is based on a real African American policeman I knew, and an episode of COPS I saw.

Ben hated most everybody, but he really hated "niggers".

To him, any Black person who didn't conform to the accepted standards of society needed to be put down. They disgraced his race.

And the episode of COPS with the girl in the Easter dress haunts me to this day.