About-face

About-face

Who can paint upside down?  
Not one from the comfort of a death-
rattle recliner or from boots tied 
to a gallows rope. Not one from 
the other side of the equator.  

Reverse engineering. Deconstruction.  
The first is the first and the last 
shall be last (in a non-Biblical 
manner). Facial hair. Beards. Brows. 
Lashes. Darks and blacks. Smirks. 

Crooked lines of nostrils. Crowns 
and caps. Clothes. Outer layers 
wait on belts and swords. Shameless 
hubris of cheeks lie tidy before the already
shadowed hands brush their spears.

–Todd Sukany 23 Oct 2023

I like the title and closing words.  Military like.

S 1:  i like the repetition of Not, Not... 
I wondered about gallows rope without the apostrophe, so I looked it up.  I think it's okay as you have it. I'm wishing for a specific place below the equator. (I thought of Africa...)

S 2:  I'm thinking of an overall tearing down....non-Biblical emphasizes your meaning is not Biblical. Sounds are good: first and reverse. I like the shortness with periods:  Beards....Smirks.

S 3: Now I'm taken back to line one and you close in on specifics and details.  Sounds like: brushing as used by an artist in painting and it sounds like getting ready for war which is inevitable. 

Lordy, Lordy.  I wonder how much I did not understand. 

I think punctuation/caps/grammar is all good.

Hi Pat.

Thanks for the critique.  I will let you know if this poem makes the cut.  You've been kind and helpful.

Blessings

Todd

Good luck with it!  Proud of you for sending it off.... I need to do more of that.

Pat