The Watch Man -- version 1.1

[Leanne]

Lizzie, this one really resonates with me and it's largely because of the excellent way you've structured the links between your stanzas, so that each idea builds on the last.  The final stanza positively drips with irony and frustration.

You are the Watch Man
  —the synchronized—
     the on time,
     the in rhyme,
     the clock chime. -- I'm not sure if the "the" repetition works.  To me, two syllables per rhyme-line would work well for a tick tock echo

Your ideas are precise
     and p.u.n.c.t.u.a.t.e.d. -- I picture a man tapping out his ideas on the table, or in the air, making sure that nothing is missed

Your t's are always perfect,
     a package intact,
     like little perfect crosses. -- the cross links perfectly to baptism in the next stanza

Your baptism beliefs
  —so streamlined—
     are written clean
     in decisive cursive—
     one sided, double spaced
     on a ruled yellow legal pad—
     then filed neat in gray cabinets,
     in beige manila envelopes,
     sealed with lined, white labels. -- very precise, in triplicate I expect...

You are a compactor,
     feeding yourself archaic decay
     that you force into cubes
     with magnificent effort,
     bending rust
     into sharpened edges. -- a man stuck in a time long past, but determined to present his views as dominant and vital

Oh, dad, what a sin I am to you,
     the foul stench
     of curved flesh
     in your solid, metal cubes—
     the i missing its dot. -- this hurts, but oh, I love those incomplete letters and rebel sentences