John Doe

[matsunosuperfan]

Like a deer in headlights     a feint at cliche...
the car approaches me     ...immediately and provocatively subverted
flowers are the only faces
I accept     great line that has me searching for the implication 
yet a uniform evicts me    nice metonymy. I would prefer "but" to "yet" because I'm super duper American + a stickler for avoiding even a whiff of anachronism. 
from my property     subtle work with it being "my" property despite being evicted
he asks my name, I say
“I don’t know”
and he calls me      nah you gotta save this for the end!! plus I think the segue (hehe) into "segue to night" is smoother with a caesura here 

segue to night
when my blood was beeswax
the honey that dripped from wrist     "from wrist" = poemy syntax, blech
hand swelling like a berry bush
it was too dark to see
any of this
until the porch light met my features
then I slipped gloves on
and went into wind folds again    I think this is by far the weakest stanza. some interesting tone/mood of botanical dread eventually develops, but overall it feels dangerously loose, a bit too much unmoored abstraction maybe. 

tonight, one by one
I am in horror reals  not sure exactly what this means but it's scary and visceral
can’t blink away
can’t want to wake
when I do I am 
John Doe   not sure what this means in the context of the poem 

The farm is pigs and sheep and
syllables
corn season is almost upon - me
the tractor is brown instead of 
blank red
the field is empty instead of 
brown cement
there are times I ran in circles
when I was eight
breathless
now when I have too much
breathe
it is never enough
to wait for   this stanza is really immersive. again I feel kinda lost in terms of literal interpretation, but I don't mind too much. there's a strong through line of emotion: disorientation, confusion, wrongness, misalignment

if my mouth was flat
I am just a husk
my mom left town
the stress was too much
my son grew up
our barn was too warm
papa fell in love
but not with us interesting run, almost too much fragmentation? wants to be dramatic but I can't help feeling it becomes almost comical by the end of this stanza, since each couplet is so parallel in structure (if my mouth was flat, my son grew up, you put your left hand in, put your left hand out...) 

tonight, one by one
I am in horror reels
can’t blank away
can’t want to wake
when I do I am 
John Doe  wait are these song lyrics? I don't think the refrain is effective.

my friends went to
a school I don’t know
if they ever were true
some dreams are indigo
some aren’t even that      very luminous verse moments here 

the car approaches me
flowers are the only faces
a uniform evicts me
my property
asks my name, so I say
“I don’t know”
and he calls me    can't say I have much use for these repetitions, except for the last one

Overall this has a lot of very compelling language. I struggle to find a consistent sensibility, but mostly I'm okay with that. Sometimes I think the poem tips its hand, and sometimes it seems to get maybe a bit more carried away than is productive. Good bones. Prune and shape, methinks.