Splintered

[sun_sparks]

Splintered
 

She grinds pasta for bread.

No flour—

My knife slices fresh sourdough.

The red door stands alone

above splintered

bricks and bodies.

My front door closes.

He breakdances on the corner

hands gripping rubble,

a drone: his beat and his overseer.

He beatboxes onstage,
red lights bathing upstretched arms.

We watch her run

through flames

consuming her family,

screams peak—and die—

 

In cages. Humans.

 

Slaughtered,

not for meat—only bones.

Lambs for after the fast.

[adat]

I am not sure the right-aligned vs. left-aligned text works as well as severely indented vs unindented text would; on a computer screen the two juxtaposed sequences are jarringly far apart.

Regarding punctuation, the closing em dashes distract me (why not a period as elsewhere?), as does the period instead of a semi-colon in the first right stanza.

The graphically strongest right stanzas (We watch her run... and Slaughtered...) are less strong to me than the more "mundane" descriptions.

The use of "we" in the fourth right stanza shifts the perspective from third to first person, which goes against the predominant juxtaposition of realities but not voice (maybe, "she can be seen running..."?). Similar for "he beatboxes..." on the fourth left line (maybe, "I watch him beat onstage"?).

Two minor things: is it onstage, or on stage? And last left line, "lambs for after the fast" or "lambs after the fast" (leaving "for" implied)?

Overall, I thought this poem was excellent, as can perhaps be seen from my nitpicky feedback.

[sun_sparks]

Thanks adat.

I'm struggling with the enjambment on this, as you rightly pointed out. In all honesty, I don't think I'm ever any clearer on why i pick some punctuation over others.

The alignment piece is a good catch. The spacing wasn't quite so drastic in Word, but tabbing made it go insane! Any tech whizzes with an eye for structural poetry got tips for this?

I'll post a revision soon.