Death Wears a Sexy Grin

Excellent metaphor poem, evocative and crisp, with a thoughtful, funny narrative. Personifying death as a woman is in itself an interesting, somewhat original idea. The femme fatale comparison, her sexiness and sadism, mingling sex with themes of fear, is genius. There's something wonderfully emasculating about the verse in which she treatens to stick her hand up some poor man's rectum as he nears the end.
My one complaint regards the inconsistent use of capitals. Sometimes you begin lines with them ("Draw your own conclusions"; "She's probably sat there right now") but mostly you don't. Also it can be unclear if you're referring to death as a person or a thing. For instance: "I expect death's actually/laughing her head off"; as "death" is defined as "she" and doing something human I think it should be capitalised.
Thanks for the read, Abra.

I understand my modernist line breakery has never been your cup of tea, Jack. As you know I use those caps deliberately and they work hard to create space and breath, in lieu of little piece of shit commas.
My preferred punctuation is the double dash & in isolated cases I might sneak in a colon.
In death's case, I did consider capitalisation, but felt it occurs too often in the poem to go large without creating a stumble elsewhere.
Of course all things are subject to change, I'm a sucker for tweakery....
At one stage in the writing it was a toss up whether death should be the devil or not, but everyone knows the devil isn't a female - don't they? Hmmm.
Appreciate the detail of your crit.

Best ~ Abra

What do you have against commas, may I ask? Though I see your point about how your use of capitalisation indicates pauses, it doesn't until the reader's moved away from the previous line and started the next, which causes a stumble, like turning a corner and suddenly seeing a STOP sign. For me, anyway. Just JMHO again.

I think by now it's accepted that the blood of free verse mostly runs freely through comma-less veins, Jack.  
But as we both know, it's inevitably down to personal taste.  
For instance, perhaps I find the old-fashioned notion of starting every line in a poem with a capital repulsive -- maybe for me it's like a karate chop to the throat which only looks breathless on the page -- but that still wont stop me reading a piece because of my opinion about that.  
The trouble with style (any style)is that it's like bile. It seems to be an essential requirement, but now whether it rests sweetly in the stomach or rises to turn into a horrid taste in the mouth is another matter.  
I do believe the best style must be unobtrusive and when it's not, it has to blind you to its own clunkiness by demonstrating brilliance.  
But what do I know, I've spent most of my life worrying about syntax.

Thanks for explaining, Abra. To me commas are just a functional part of poetry, like speech marks when you want to indicate dialogue, and can be used in free verse the same as any other form.
I suppose I inhabit an uneasy middle ground. I agree with you about beginning each line with a capital letter - I don't mind it in metered verse though with free it seems strange - but full stops and commas aren't obtrusive to me. Quite the opposite, they create an easy rhythm which supports the order of a poem.
Saying free verse doesn't use commas is odd. The point of the form as I understand it is that it rejects all standard construction and follows an idiosyncratic one, so attaching trends to it seems paradoxical.
All JMHO of course. I like your style if only because it's so Abracadabrian and, unlike others who lay claim to a way of writing poetry, you're learned.

Not sure about the learned part, Jack - but as I see it, the position of the right word strategically placed in its correct order on the page leaves me little need of commas.
Why inflict the clockwork workings of punctuation on the reader unless you absolutely have to?
Personally I'm not sure about the beauty in ' or ;
& it doesn't matter whether it's placed in a write by Wordsworth or Napper the wrapper.
I confess I take great pleasure in going back over my old poems and removing the commas where I can get away with it, semi-colons are almost extinct there and I guess the full stop will one day come under fire too. I have yet to develop a foolproof strategy regarding inverted commas to mark speech though. Perhaps one day I might.

"Why inflict the clockwork workings of punctuation on the reader unless you absolutely have to?"

Well it depends on if you see it as an infliction. I don't, personally. For me poetry lies in precision, which commas encourage. There are many other ways of avoiding word feces though. You yourself do it with your precise images and expression. I guess whatever works for the particular poet. I'm not trying to convince you to use commas at all. On the contrary, the evolution of your style interests me a great deal. All I'm saying is that commas work, and punctuation isn't anti-poetry.

In my own poems I imagine my role as a conductor of words, moving them precisely into place feeding what I hope is a well oiled machine to convey feelings and ideas.  
Each word I select carries with it the sum of its own meanings and during the creative process they become my children to be nurtured with care.
Somehow (maybe foolishly) I cannot feel quite the same way about semi-colons or comma placement - they are never going to twang my poetic heartstrings or inspire passion within me.
Currently I enjoy only partial liberation from the terrors inflicted upon me by teachers who felt it their duty to force antiquated rules of language down the throats of impressionable kids.
But I'm working on it Jack - and poetry is the best therapy I know for that.

I've now removed all those pesky commas, etc, Jack and for me death's grin reads even better without them.
Thanks for all your input ~ A.

This is really really good, I hope you don't mind me putting this on my reading recommendations. This is most unique.