Stacks

[Brownlie]

A poem which has baffled me as to how long it should be and which bits are important/not. Thanks in advance for feedback!

Stacks

Spines tear eventually
with great difficulty.
 
But see the ease of the checkout boy -- I think you can condense this simile or metaphor. Comparing spines to plastic bags is interesting, but it may work better with fewer words.
who whipcracks open a plastic bag.
[ five pence well spent ]
Save my wrist strength for ripping
through tomes. -- I guess tomes generally has a humorous connotation. 
 
Time to return home.
[ The flat is  four minutes from the supermarket not including a further minute for the lift and key fob fumbling, I save seconds everyday forgoing my letterbox ]
Pace fast glance only briefly at faces,
and never higher,
I warn you. I have a protractor;
don't tilt to the sixth, twelfth, eightieth stories,
cricking the neck to look
to the top of the glass sarcophagus. -- OK the topic seems to be like a stream of consciousness from the point of view of a sort of tech guy.
 
The others, do they gaze up
Is one of them the mouth that will say:
mmmm skyscraper i love you! -- Now it almost sounds as if this is written from the skyscraper's point of view.
Only a true story if
you work in postcard design, crane rental
or the manufacture of tuned mass dampers. -- This is intriguing industrial-type writing.
[ to soothe doomy office workers. ]
Perhaps they gather at set time; surround
the orb and pray. Those on lunch breaks turn to
face the building and blow sky kisses.
[ I'm being ridiculous ]
 
No matter,
just keep the cervical curve in check.
The paving stones will always be there to catch me. -- Now it sounds like a suicide poem.
 
Due to time constraints I have to take the lift;
simply a cheap iron coffin,
for up to 10 residents
to drown in together.
 
I have neighbours like a dog has fleas
like a teenage has spots
like a funeral has grief
 
Anyway, it's dinner time not simile time;
[ I must watch myself ]
I fold up the bag carefully and add it to the plastic totem.
I microwave all the food which gives me
4 minutes to page tear from a Wolfe.-- Not sure what you mean by Wolfe. Virginia Wolfe?
 
I take the ingredients and place them in the centre of the page,
[ I think about an advert I saw earlier ]
fold the leaf carefully into a fat wonton
just the right size to be swallowed whole,
[I sometimes feel like a nested bird] -- This nested bird comparison is interesting and could be flushed out, but I think doing too much of that here would clutter things.
but it tastes fine and
it goes down easy.
 
[ and steadies my undreamed sadness from blowing free in the wind ]

First off, while I'm critiquing you, I'm being a hypocrite because I am prolific producer of crappy writing. I also don't believe there are any hard and fast rules to creative things.

This poem has some cool language and interesting comparisons, such as the neighbors like fleas bit, the part about postcard designers, and the bit about a cluttered house being like a bird's nest.

That being said, in my mind, the main issue here is clarity. I'm confused about what this poem is really about. I think being very clear about what you're trying to say here will help get this poem into a better condition. Maybe start by defining what the poem is about in the title? I'm not sure what you mean by stacks. That's my main suggestion, which I hope provides something useful for editing. If other people comment and get your poem, clarity may not be an issue, but at that point, you should have something to work with. Good luck.