*Please Delete*

[Aidoneus]

Witching Hour

He grins at men getting off the metro,

When the flourishing breath that the steel

has held from the last stop is released,

And the suits with turgid language cut

right through this image unknowingly.

 

Traipsing past neon lit signs

that patiently remind him of

inadequacy, flickering and

ever present; becoming an

unwilling sentinel on concrete.

 

Gone from the eyes of passerby,

Feeling of being a part in

some worldly commute to escape

sordid sterile city lights has left.

This absence is invaded with silence.

 

And within this space that seemed

Somehow boundless and yet horribly

small and so closely confining,

There was tender joy in the sight

of the odd passing artificial light.

 

Headed to his dwelling in a torpor

thinking about how these concrete corners,

all squalid and abused, should outlive him.

Lingering just longer than the chapel.

 

Now home away from the earthly glow,

The man lies in bed reading aloud

To the enthralled linoleum ground.

This served no real purpose at all,

 

Except maybe to create more sound.

 

[Mattp]

Aidoneus, for me this was confusion peppered with brilliance. The confusion:

When the flourishing breath that the steel
has held from the last stop is released
And the suits with turgid language cut
right through this image unknowingly

Feeling of being a part in
some worldly commute to escape
sordid sterile city lights has left


The brilliance:

thinking about how these concrete corners,
all squalid and abused, should outlive him

This served no real purpose at all,
Except maybe to create more sound


I think your inventive word usage has come at the expense of clarity. Reign yourself back a bit and try to keep your reader's understanding in mind. And dude, align left. Centering is a gimmick. Thanks for the read,

- Matt

[Achebe]

it would improve the poem if you stuck to the unity of place. Too many things being said, and on top of that a change in location? Overwhelms the reader.
And echo Matt - you're wasting the readers time if it's not left aligned.

[homer1950]

So Aidoneus thanks for the poem,

It read well enough for me except this one portion;

Gone from the eyes-(plural) of passerby-(singular)
Feeling of being a part in-(of)?
some worldly commute (,)? to escape(,)?
sordid (,)?sterile (,)? city lights(,)? has left.
This absence is invaded with silence.

The commas I am suggesting would slow down the read and could cause the poem to be more dramatic in it's feel

[Barbito]

Try working on the meter...
Good work.

Clearly not enough of a critique in the Mild Workshop. If there is a problem with the meter, where? Please give the OP something to work with. Thanks, ella/mod.