[Robt_Ward]

John

I'll have to go with Rhina and Steven here; the sentence won't pass muster. Here's a slightly different take on it:

as written:

As eldest, every eye was turned
toward me. A splat of red
on the sidewalk broke into my trance.

alternate (for grammar):

The eldest, I saw how every eye was turned
toward me. A splat of red
on the sidewalk broke into my trance.

I'm not saying that's better poetry, of course, but it illustrates a point: In the line as written, one wants to assume (from the construction) that "I", the "eldest", "me", is the subject of the sentence, when in fact the "eye" is the subject and the "eldest", "me", is the object. I think this is where it's falling apart. Clearly, in the context of the poem, the subject is the observer, the speaker of the poem, but in this particular line the contorted grammar doesn't support that at all. So in many ways it's the lack of a verb associated with "eldest" that is tripping us up here.

(robt)