Mercy

It is a sort of perfection
which buzzes and whines
over the table
shimmering and glistening
with unearthly glamour,
wings catching the light
and throwing it back
broken into rainbow pieces.

It is a sort of perfection
which the hand
thunders down upon.
Almost-but-not-quite
crushing away life
with

A single swipe is reflex
followed by astonished silence.

A second may be cruelty
or a twisted sense of power;
playing God.

A third -
that is a kindness.
A humane euthanasia
(unfortunate dismemberment)
to sooth the guilty conscience
of the accidental murderer.

That crushing weight of flesh -
the hand -
the last semblance of
love
which that
sort-of-perfection
can ever know.

Hi there!

I've found it much easier for me to review poems if I simply quote them and write my comments in the quote. That being said, my comments are in violet below. (I'm tired of using the color red)

Pigeon3 wrote:It is a sort of perfection
which buzzes and whines Great description here.
over the table;
shimmering and glistening
with unearthly glamour:
Wings catching the light,
and throwing it back
broken into rainbow pieces.
The first stanza is the one usually used to hook a reader to the poem. Yours, I think, did a great job of this. Your imagery is great in this and it flows well.

It is a sort of perfection Nice repitition.
which the hand
thunders down upon. I always loved this comparison. I can just see a hand thundering down on something.
Almost-but-not-quite Nice use or punctuation.
crushing away life
with - I think you should use a colon here instead or a dash. That's just my opinion.

A single swipe is reflex,
followed by astonished silence.

A second may be cruelty
or a twisted sense of power;
playing a god. You should put the word 'a' in here because you didn't capitalize God. Not to mention, whatever you're describing would be copying a god, not the God. Make sense?

A third... I personallly don't think you need to use an ellipsis (is that how you spell it?) here. I think you should leave the line as 'A third' and move on.
that is a kindness.
A humane euthanasia
(unfortunate dismemberment)
to sooth the guilty conscience
of the accidental murderer.

That crushing weight of flesh -
the hand -
the last semblance of
love
which that
sort-of-perfection Again, I love the use of punctuation.
can ever know.

Overall this is a good poem and I enjoyed reading it. You used punctuation very effectively and you put good emotion into this. It flows well and has a definite rhytm to it. My favorite part is when you listed 'the single swipe', 'the second', and 'the third'. I don't really know why, but I loved that part!

Keep writing!

It is a sort of perfection

This line really does not flow all that well to my ears. It sounds stilted, so it sticks out negatively, and considering you repeat this line elsewhere in the poem, the repetition is made even more obvious, so much so that it feels glaring.

There's also the matter of how you're calling it "a sort of perfection", which reads more as "sort-of perfection", which leads me to wonder why you couldn't have been more explicit with what "it" is. Right now, "it" is vague, and for all the descriptors and actions you attribute to "it", "it" remains woefully vague. Vague + Vague = More Vague; not less vague.

One other thing that I found detracted from this poem was all the punctuation. It is very obtrusive, and quite a fair chunk of it is not only unnecessary, but makes no sense. The colon at the end of the second stanza is a particularly egregious example. Punctuation should not pull attention to itself, but that is exactly what the punctuation is doing here, and it is very distracting.

Overall, both the vagueness and the obtrusive punctuation give off an impression that this poem is trying too hard.