After reading your comments about Victoria Tucker's poem Torment, I have decided to post my poem without stating what it is about.
Story Time
Mrs Hochsprung was on the reading mat next to me.
She didn’t tell the children to shush in the hall.
Her eyes didn’t blink blink blink like they usually did.
Annie was underneath her, eyes scrunched tight
lips mumbling this morning’s assembly prayer.
The bangs sounded like mummy banging pans
when she was cross at Sandy or Luke or daddy.
She was going to be cross when she saw my dress.
A policeman pushed Mrs Hochsprung on her side.
His hand went down his face after he’d felt her neck.
Mummy said daddy cried when the Stork brought me.
Annie’s lips had stopped mumbling she’d gone to sleep.
Heaps of my friends went to sleep today at story time.
Hi
I'm guessing it is about shootings at a primary school. I like that it isn't spelt out in the title, or even obvious in the first few lines.
I know next to nothing about poetry, but I am curious why you decided to group the lines in threes and twos; there didn't seem to be a pattern to it.
I'm also not sure about the phrase 'His hand went down his face' - it's not clear what gesture (?) your are referring to.
Also the penultimate line could do with a comma to make the meaning clearer - was it her lips that had stopped or was it the mumbling?
I thought the child's mistaken thought that her friends were asleep was very effective.
Hope that was helpful.
Ah, twigged fairly quickly, but won't tell!
I like it although I thought it read more like a flash fiction than a poem, but I don't really understand poetry so that could just be me.