Rhys

[Quixilated]

Hello, to begin, there are parts of this that spoke to me and parts I couldn’t quite understand. But I think it’s got some decent bones.  I think a little clarity could be added for the reader if you were to separate the piece out of block form and into three stanzas.  The reflection in the middle about Jean Rhys is bookended by the narrator’s real time experience, so for the reader, one stanza for each bookend and Jean gets her own stanza.  There were also a few punctuation choices that made it difficult for me to understand the sentence, I will point those out in the poem itself.  

Rhys
 
Smile please- the familiar entreaty of old men on the street,  and here I already sympathize with the N, because what is that about anyway? Why do they do that? 
Much to our rage, eroding our carefully painted faces, that endless devotion, interrupted with regular creases buried in and in by reluctant concessions of basic human need for, a currency of, reciprocation. Ok, so I get what you’re saying here but the sentence is long and twisty and full of commas, and it took way too many reads to understand which was doing what, and which phrases are modifying which words etc. and in the end I am left with just a vague notion that a mask is cracking because the face underneath can no longer bear the pressures of the situation.  But it’s not as clear as it could be. Perhaps if it were separated into two or three separate sentences, the reader would be able to follow. And here is where I would end stanza one.  I thought it was so clever of Jean Rhys- I pictured her furs dulled by the same condescension, dolling out builder’s tea with feigned, knees, (I cannot for the life of me understand why “knees” is separated out by commas or what feigned knees are?  But I don’t actually know much about Jean Rhys so I am assuming it might just be something going over my head about her life) to get passed the traffic lights without one’s confidence being further divided- ‘There’s a hole in your tights.’ Damn, a desire so strong as just one of the dithering dears, to smash their faces in- just once, with a bottle. And here is where I would end stanza two. But smoke curled around his features and dabbed at reality so pleasingly, lamp-light incisions pronounced my bone structure, stroked my self-image, so generous- yet subtly, I didn’t even shudder I do not quite understand the end here.  My guess is that the N wants to be repulsed by the attention but also feels flattered and then feels even more repulsed by having felt flattered?  Or did something happen between the N and the man that is only alluded to? 
 
 ; So profanely flattered that here I am in my own flat alone, stupid and hammered. 

Anyway, i hope that something in there helped.  I know I didn’t exactly offer a lot of suggestions of what specifically to change, but hopefully seeing it a bit from one reader’s perspective will help you see which of your intentions landed, and which might need adjustments to be clearer.  I look forward to seeing where you take this.  

-Quix