To Drink and Drive

[tectak]

It was another accident.
I reached down to pick up
the withered,
decayed bouquet
that littered the dull grey pavement. Grey is dull. Dull is grey. There is an adjective going spare,here

With clammy hands Medical cliche
My aunt placed another Unrelated "another"
against the lamp post
refreshing this scene
and the faded memories I have. cliche

When we stopped in silence
I wondered if ever, anyone
had given a passing thought -
if the speeding drivers poor syntax here and line above. Very clunky. The dash to freedom.
knew it could be them next.

Her voice shattered the dead air Whose? You do not say... but I still see cliche(s)
and her words fell on me
like shards of a mirror,
covering my broken reflections cliche, cliche
with blood and whiskey.

Unspoken truths - now I know. cliche
How could you be so careless?
You drank, then drove.
you also nursed my scraped knees, Capital on "You"...
Tested the smoke alarm every Sunday. but not on "tested". There is a rule...

How could you?
as my aunt broke into tears, which also applies here
full of tense guilt, unrestrained What is/are "tense guilt, unrestrained her eyes"? You wrote it
her eyes inked red with despair.
We started the journey home.

She put the handbrake on outside the door....and did it suit her, or did it make her bum look big? Flaky syntax
I would not have shed so many tears, if I had known.
Aunt pushed me up the ramp into the hall.
I sat and waited for her to take my coat off.
I sat and wondered -

How could I forgive you now?

Hi amy,
It is easy to lose sight of what the purpose of posting on serious crit is...and this is very much about this piece. The content is harrowing and one has to assume that you consciously wrote into the piece as much angst as you could within the boundaries imposed by the requirement to write good poetry...otherwise you would have no other reason for posting it, would you? So I will make that assumption.
OK. Poetry.
S1 opens well but perhaps a little over dramatically. As you care not for flow or rhythm or rhyme in this piece you can just split the lines up anywhere you choose and it will make no difference...and you do. Please remember this is a comment on the poetic qualities in the piece. What logic, emotional or poetic reason can you give for putting " the withered" in a single line. I am curious because I seem to be unaware of the poetic device you are using and would be much enlightened to know. There must be a really good argument for random line breaks because you do
it a
lot.
S2 Is your aunt named "My"? No. Please remember this is a comment on the poetic qualities in the piece. What logic, emotional or poetic reason can you give for capitalising the word, then? Ah, its traditional....I see...but hang on, you don't capitalise "against" in the same stanza. Sure beats me.
Enough. I can't go on like this. Could you go through the piece and just tidy it up a bit. The line breaks are insane and irrational. There are a couple of missing capitals at the beginning of sentences. You don't think punctuation is worth worrying about and you find it restrictive and you are a free spirit and you want to write how you want to write...I hope not. I think not.
We shall see.
Concept old and tired but you squeezed what you could out of this very dry lemon. Hearse-verse is difficult to get right...wait till you see what crap Maggie Thatcher's death throws up
Best,
tectak