Hey James,
Very ambitious, indeed, as Alex said! It struck me as very intriguing but that you were trying too hard to write something eccentric. Definitely some exercising is necessary, I'd say, but not loads of tightening, as I think the language and tone are generally impressive and interesting.
I would actually get rid of the whole indented sequence, as I don't think it has anything to the poem. I'll put some suggested deletions in bold below, but I won't apply that to the whole indented section (i.e., I'll still comment/suggest in that section) in case you ultimately decide to keep some/most of it.
Anyway, I hope it helps in some way.
All the best,
Trev
Version 2 (newest):
Hallucinations of the Knife
It leapt from the hand one evening over spuds [feels out of place tonally, as well as an unnecessary detail]
out the window into moonlight that quickened
[that quickened] its mirror of movement a moment -- [m overkill]
................twilight a tendon thicket
................distant churchbells
................feline touch of nettle
................murmurs of rosemary
................through these one pleat of a skirt ["this" feels more natural than "these" to me]
................through these a trapdoor shaft
................through these a studious fish
................emerald brocade on one side
................horizon smelted on one side
................taut with night bird
................or pent water
................reservoir of reeds briefly
................stalactite galactic
................heading back to its cavern
................tavern hall of flickering chatter
................sap of silverbirch subliming
................carbon scrambling into lichen
................gust of piston steam
................downriver and over into ivies
................ivies of flame quenched[,] metal sinking
................quenched metal sinking
-- and hunched its shoulders among shrubs
and went on sinking into soil, so it was unclear
whether the knife burrowed or the churning
magnet at the world's core called it,
whether the blade found all already severed
or only what it made in falling --
unmoled vaults and pulverised flowerheads,
a clothesline broken among blind worms
and the scalps flayed from nightshades --
as the knife snickered through aeons,
rust bloomed [nice phrasing!] on its seeing surface[;] , all that was
[all that was] frictive and accounted for
until oxidation shut it
into a scabbard of breath [lovely lines]
from some upper spring where song
could not be told from song
-- skirts of water off a bird-disturbed fountain --
-- frisson of the edge inching down --
so when it met the stone and stuttered[,]
it failed to know either stone [confusing unless you write "stones" earlier]
or remembered moonlight shredding in its eye.
It lost its grip then. [Maybe "...stuttered, / it lost its grip...", deleting all between?]
Was the hand to blame[,] -- the hand
that loosed or lost? [t]he hand that crafted?
I must only change direction, it [thought] didn't think, [telling us what it didn't think just feels too arch, trying too hard to be eccentric, as I mentioned earlier.
[to] focus just a little harder, couldn't.
[I'm not sure the ending works. I think you need something else, or else maybe elaborate more on the idea of the hand being to blame, the hand versus the knife dynamic, setting up a slightly deeper exploration of agency/free will]
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