Nihilism

[Todd]

Jack,

This is very good. It has some great lines in it.

the world is a spherical rock
hurtling across black canvas.

the stars are holes into another,
less painful human existence.--love this. You may be able to cut "human" since the next couplet addresses it. These are all good images.

we will never be small enough
to squeeze through them and--breaking on conjunctions might be just one of my pet peeves but it never feels strong enough to me. I'd pull live up so that you can get a layered meaning when you move to the next line.

live again. no matter what you
do, life will break your heart and--the best break in my estimation is on "break" though that may make the line to short. The content on all these lines so far is stellar Jack. These are mainly structural choices I'm pointing out for you to think of nothing more.

re-assemble it, with all the skill of
a crippled mechanic. love is a frog’s--these images are awesome. I love the crippled mechanic. You may want to move of down a line and you may want to pull up heart to make for a stronger break.

heart doodled on napkins by children.--I love the earlier star parts but the frog heart doodled thing is the coolest and best image in the poem.
and that is all that is all that is all…--the ending is good I like it. From reading it though without punctuation I would be tempted to see what it would be like as: and that is all is all is all.

Just a few thoughts

Fantastic poem though Jack in my opinion work wtih the line breaks to emphasize the stellar content better and you're done (though again jmo).

Best,

Todd