SkaaDee,
1. What makes an hour "slender"?
2. What does "quietly" modify? Does it modify the "squeeze" or the "real"?
3. How does one determine what the "real" is? A reader cannot be engaged by such an abstract presentation.
4. "still" is to motion as "whisper" is to sound. "Be still" has been used to silence opposing voices, but that fact only confuses the reader more. Since "still" is a modifier, unless you're south of the Mason-Dixon line, what is being still? If still does not cause the rip, because it is the other side of still that is "a rip in a whisper", then what caused the rip? Why should we care about a rip?
5. What is the "black" that something or someone is strolling through? Is "through" meant to state that after you are through the "black", that is, on the other side of whereever it began, there is no more black? Why is the person or thing strolling?
6. Why is silence "tender"? What renders it tender? What is causing the "great" commotion, since commotion, in and of itself, is usually pretty boisterous?
7. Why does "great commotion" have "sirens"? Why does it need them? Now, you might have meant that "tender silence" is the person or thing that also has sirens. However, the structure of the lines disconnects the sirens from the silence and connects them to the commotion.
8. Why does "cobblestone" deserve a line all its own? What makes the street lamp "shy"? Is there a fog surrounding it? Is it enamoured of the cobblestone, but does not have the courage to express its feelings?
9. Who or what is threatened with being fooled? Who or what is generating the threat? Who or what owns the "menace"? Is it the shy street lamp? Probably not. Is it the black that one is strolling through, which could not be entirely black, because of that shy street lamp?
10. A person or thing cannot "discarnate." It could "dis" carnate, that is, make fun of the flesh. However, if carnate, flesh, then it can disincarnate, that is, rid itself of flesh. However, one would like to know how that is possible? What kind of person or think is able to do that magic trick?
11. How did the "menace" get blackened? What blackened it? Why did it flee? What scared it off?
I think you might be following the trend of vampirism running rampant in teen novels and bouncing off the metroplex screens. But that is just a thought.
This poem suffers from too many abstracts. I'm sure you see something, but you are not showing the reader what it is you see. Minimalism has its place. (By the way, so does proper syntax and punctuation, despite the fact that it is trendy now to eliminate all such marks, proper word order, and a respect for the fact that the mind does respect grammar.) However, when it becomes an end in and of itself, the poem suffers, even if the author sets it in italics to try to give it more presence than it actually has.
Start over. Let the readers in on the secret behind all these tangential phrases. This does not intrique, frighten, mystify, or terrify. It just sits there, waiting for something to happen.
Keep writing.
Bill
