The poem #First World Problems was published in the online literary journal Spillwords yesterday.
Find it at: https://spillwords.com/first-world-problems/
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Words for Ghosts 
May I provide my honest opinion of the piece?
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Of course, please go ahead
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Oh btw congrats on being published!
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Swept along by the causal tide,
riding the waves of time
or
if the numbers cease to speak
& the edifice crumbles,
revealing only a single peace-
full temporal ontology,
what then?
How do we end
or continue, or begin to
make sense of it all without stories we
can now only read
but never believe?
I think a 12-hour shift
constantly on your feet,
making pointless shit for foreigners you
will never meet
could answer that question:
“I don’t care any more.
All I want is to feed my family
& sleep beneath a roof & between 4 walls…”
Pasted here so I can refer without switching tabs. (Sorry if that’s a spoiler to your readers, I can take it down on request).
I think the first half of the poem is way better, English-wise, than the second half. BUT, the whole thing is cohesive in telling a story, and you could not have the CONTENT of the two halves without one another. So well done. Personally I did not like the digression into vulgar near the end, but it must be an accurate way of representing sweatshop workers’ frustration, their (no offense) less-than-perfect English, etc. The spacing–with single-liners–is great. That single “or” is such a good tempo modifier. The pacing of the whole piece is great and interesting. It is so didactic in the first half, then turns to smoother flow near the end. Suggesting a difference of mindset between the first and third worlds. Nice use of vocabulary words, and not just name-dropping them. The first half is very poetic–but maybe that’s just because we first-worlders have the privilege of it to begin with!? Yeah, this is really good. The vulgarity bothers me, but I think that only adds to the impact, and makes me think. Well done.
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Appreciate the feedback. The use of ‘vulgarity’ was a purposeful choice on my behalf, to force the luxury and (almost opulent) lyricism of the beginning back down into the real, visceral suffering of those millions of unseen people who labour allows the aforementioned luxury to indulge in immaterial pondering. So I wanted a harsh and jarring contrast to reflect that: to whiplash to reader from ‘high-brow’ poetic-fancy into the ugly dirt of the world in which most of the planet are forced to exist. It is a poem of protest, sarcastic almost, but mostly a poem of outrage and fury
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Yeah that makes sense and I kind of already said that, too. Thanks for reinforcing. It kind of breaks the fourth wall, in a sense, in that it figuratively grabs the reader and makes them uncomfortable. Very post-modern.
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The prospect of eternal peace for only a subset of the whole population is daunting and intimidating.
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