The imagery here is interesting. Beginning the poem with imagery using many verbs and non-noun words such as back, shot (twice, emphasizing "He came back"; as if to say the killer returning to shoot was like twice intentional), fell, stumbling, down, shot (again), dying, dead. Perhaps the lack of nouns and metaphor project a more literal feeling.
Only in the second paragraph do we get introduced to the nouns: speeding bullet, tearing his face, "blood sprayed fine over the killer and the grey light". Now we have the characters missing in the first stanza, and "the grey light"; perhaps even a pseudo-metaphor. As seen in the third stanza, the light is only a metaphor, the darkness both literal and metaphorical, as is the tumbling.
The journey from literal to abstract is gradual: the first metaphor of light so commonly (over)used and familiar, it can almost "feel" real to the reader. This sets up the metaphor of tumbling down the stairs, more thoughtful and insightful.
The unusual break in the middle signifies an end and a beginning in middle of the poem; perhaps because we return to the literal.
Interesting observation about the poem's hovering between abstract and literal; given the murderous reality underlying this event, why might this be significant, in terms of the "human condition" the poem may be representing? You mention the grey light, etc, as metaphors--but for what? A key line/image also comes at the end of stanza 3, where the fall takes a definite metaphoric turn, since "everything tumbled blindly with him" as he fell through a "darkness darker than his soul" (lots of good symboli stuff to consider here). The confusion at the beginning is as you note a "reader effect" that puts us in an uncertain position, like the world, the socio-economic reality (this is Brooks' world, too)these 2, unnamed victim and unknown killer, inhabit, where nothing is as it seems; we are also put in the position of the "Surprized" victim, at the end, where, like him, "we know nothing."
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