4/3/5

[canofworms]

Feel free to critique or rewrite or suggest as you wish. 

I haven't ever been big on perfect punctuation, but do my best.  years of living with someone who corrected my punctuation over my shoulder, before I could correct it myself, made me want to do so even less.  

Punctuation, how hard is it to be on time?

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"Karl Karl Karl" the crow caws
From its perch on a log outside my window.
It was April 2005 and I had yet to propose. To the lady that killed karl? --YES, marriage
Again "Karl Karl Karl!" the crow cawed from the log floating by my window as the spring thaw flooded the muddy river. It swelled and surrounded the shotgun shack I built for us. 
I was young and strong and defiant. I stood a modern Ulysses, polytropos without a beard. Even Mother Nature's wrath for building on her river's bed seemed a mere nuisance. Old lady across the street said, it had been over the eaves in '68 and Grandma lost her mind in '84 for me this line almost doesn't work, unless one of them is the killer of Karl or the lady you proposed to, unless propose has nothing to do with marriage.   --OK. I'd row my dented Jon boat a quarter mile to my Continental on the berm. I could rescue my fair maiden, my damsel, my waif, my wife, where all had failed: the doctors, her mother, her father, even God himself.rescue the killer? Is this the old lady across the street
"Karl! Karl! Karl!" the crow caws outside my window, his black eyes screaming at me, head cocked to one side. 
But still I sleep. And moonlight dances on the surging river rising higher and higher. It does. The water lapping gently against the cedar shakes, making their way into my dreams. 
as day breaks and I roll out of bed to find water at my feet, the window closed. I look out for my black eyed tormentor I see nothing but water surrounding the house. Fairly suspenseful
I am inundated. Echoing in my ears "Karl!"
And for a moment there I almost get it. Maybe I did and just didn't want to. 
But the warning "Karl Karl Karl!" went unheeded. 
I knew who he was and what happened. I knew he was dead. I knew it was because of her and what she had done to him. 
And there was no mistake in my mind that the crow cried 
"Karl! Karl! Karl!"the beating of the hideous heart
Like some Shakespeare ghost, pleading that I run away and save myself from this doom. A slow train wreck that everyone in the audience has seen coming for four hundred years. 
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This stanza is a nod to Shakespeare, although I could never write in iambic pent.- too many syllables-- and  thus archaic  words and melodrama are given a pass. or at least that's my intent.
 
A lilting voice come-hithers me crow caws.  -this is literally her sleeping in bed. 
to bed and sweet perfume water bed death 
Anon I said and walked toward not a fan of 'anon' -nod to Shakespeare
this siren song, my doom.

So it sounds like you let the water take you in your grief.  You're the slow train walking towards it cause of something mysterious that haunts you.  And it seems  you've blended genres, a poem about a story you wrote.  The poem being the four lines at the end.  I really like the descriptions of the water and don't care much for the back story, with the exception of the shack. 

THANKS!
Its actually a dream I had on that day.  I know the day because of when the flood hit. 
there was no crow. it was in my mind. Crows don't call in the middle of the night. 
Thinking about it years later, after she tried to destroy me, I believe it was my subconscious warning me of things to come.

---

So to take your advice
I removed the part about the Old lady.
How is my punctuation on this?
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"Karl Karl Karl" the crow caws
From its perch on a log outside my window.
It was April 2005 and I had yet to propose.
Again "Karl Karl Karl!" the crow cawed from the log floating by my window as the spring thaw flooded the muddy river. It swelled and surrounded the shotgun shack I built for us.
I was young and strong and defiant. I stood a modern Ulysses, polytropos without a beard. Even Mother Nature's wrath for building on her river's bed seemed a mere nuisance. I'd row my dented Jon boat a quarter mile to my Continental on the berm. I could rescue my fair maiden, my damsel, my waif, my wife, where all had failed: the doctors, her mother, her father, even God himself.
"Karl! Karl! Karl!" the crow caws outside my window, his black eyes screaming at me, head cocked to one side.
But still I sleep. And moonlight dances on the surging river rising higher and higher. It does. The water lapping gently against the cedar shakes, making their way into my dreams.
as day breaks and I roll out of bed to find water at my feet, the window closed. I look out for my black eyed tormentor I see nothing but water surrounding the house.
I am inundated. Echoing in my ears "Karl!"
And for a moment there I almost get it. Maybe I did and just didn't want to.
But the warning "Karl Karl Karl!" went unheeded.
I knew who he was and what happened. I knew he was dead. I knew it was because of her and what she had done to him.
And there was no mistake in my mind that the crow cried
"Karl! Karl! Karl!"
Like some Shakespeare ghost, pleading that I run away and save myself from this doom. A slow train wreck that everyone in the audience has seen coming for four hundred years.

A lilting voice come-hithers me
to bed and sweet perfume
Anon I said and walked toward
this siren song, my doom.