Auto de fé at the Plaza Mayor

[Sparkydashforth]

Thanks JM,

I am always grateful to be tutored in the
art of poetry by you.

The tenses were mixed deliberately of course, I do that a lot,
so you may have to continue to "struggle".

I like 'suddenly' in its context in this write.
　
Besides which, and notwithstanding - my fault.

Hi Sparky - 'turgid' is the word!

Your lines are so crammed with adjective/noun constructions- in fact there's barely a noun standing without an adjective - that reading this is a struggle for me.

You skip tenses, from past in the first stanza, to present from then on, which doesn't really work for me. Maybe set the first stanza in the present as well, as the point of your poem seems to be how the present contains the past anyway.

Lots of passive verbs - was brutal, was thickened, are dribbled, am jostled, are pinched - I'd like to see some of them become active, so something actually happens as I read

Do you know the poem 'Tension' by Billy Collins?

.He uses this epigraph

  “Never use the word suddenly just to
           create tension.”
                       —Writing Fiction