A Multitude of Sins

[billy]

i'm doing this from memory as you didn't post the original with which to compare it. The ideal way is to place the original in quotes, and put the edit with an edit number (1st edit, or 2nd edit etc.) above the edit your adding to the post. then tell us all below you did an edit

I cannot handle dead bodies since
I had to shave that lifeless face
and scrape off sins like blades of glass,
like chalk on a board, as if death squeaked
through rotten teeth and hollow cheeks. the cuts in this verse make a huge difference.

Talking is easier. This also seems to work better now that i wasn't held up in the 1st.
Do you remember the plant
in the top-floor lounge
that we both so heartily hated?
I never did find out its name.
For me it was merely ugly; for you
those large waxy leaves were its ears,
leaning in closer to steal your secrets,
absorbing smoke and speech. the anthropomorphism in this stanza works really well. specially the last three lines. a bit of good imagery as well. (something i missed in the first few reads because i couldn't get past that first stanza)

I sit beside it now.
The old place is closed down, supplanted
by Home Treatment, Star Workers
and Voluntary Organisations. this last one is too generic for caps.
The staff were left to rehabilitate
unwanted items of furniture:
my wife took a shine to a table, chairs
and this antiquated listening device. i really think i get this, i have a friend who spills her guts to rose plants

I sit beside it now as your tales disturb me -
how your father died too early,
how wicked and unworthy you were,
how little you desired or deserved to live;
your refusal to take yes for an answer. this stanza doesn't feel like it adds anything

Like a priest inside a confessional
I asked you to itemise your sins,
so I could tick them off a list:
schoolboy misdemeanours
of tuppenny ha’penny pettiness –
not the stuff of formal therapies!
Hardly hanging offences, I stated,
you must be a saint
or simply don’t get out very much -
waiting for the laughed response.
Waiting…

Now I see how the brown leather belt
we bought together, that you haggled over
with the market trader, is wrapped around
the bathroom door handle
and cuts your neck purple, the angle very poignant to this point
of your purple shoulders, veins bulging
purple, eyes popping purple too many purples, the 1st was excellent then it got much of a sameness
for five or six days on life support;
pleading for an end to purple, waiting
for consensus to gather and grow
as thick and long as your beard.strong ending.

some of the images are excellent as is a lot of the narrative. the biggest nit i had was all the purples. it weakened what till then was a great read.
it was a refreshing yet saddening read and i really liked it. the edit was a big big improvement