How does the poet decide where the line endings should be? Is there a rhyme or syllable count I’m missing here? And the last line, is that a specific spacing over to the right?
I don’t think there is any rule or pattern in modern poetry. Line breaks create interruptions as you’re reading which can be used to manipulate the flow of a poem, it can also be used to emphasize certain words or sentences or group them, or decouple them. Of course, a bad poet can always just arbitrarily introduce line breaks to make a piece more “poem-like”. You see that happen a lot, and the skill of the poet I suppose will determine whether it comes across as the former or latter.
The extended spacing of the last line here works for me, I will say that. It really introduces a sense of pause, which goes really well with the theme of the poem and that last line.
Older I get the more im ready to go.
