Miles of Dirt

[Lucifer]

Lucifer,

'm generally pretty lost when it comes to punctuation. I do like the capitalization. I wanted this to be read slow, with a pause at the end of each line. I'm not sure how to best achieve that.

In response to that comment, here is a suggestion which I will impose on the first stanza, but the same can be used on all stanzas.

Sparkling foam breaks on gravel clay;    the semi-colon works fine here.
pine a woolen Earth.                             don't see a reason to capitalize pine or have a comma  
—miles of dirt, miles of dirt—                 the third line is a refrain so it can be said parenthetically as this is like a sea shanty  

As someone mentioned, I see no reason for "pine" to be associated with "woolen."

In this one it makes a little more sense:

"Ancient worms translate the day;
Rock, a frothy Earth"

That is I can see that the worms translate "rock" into a "frothy earth."

In this one:

"Sea caps smirk at birds of prey;
Mist, a prickly Earth"

I see that maybe earth is being prickly as it smirks, but I see not connection to "mist," which should probably be "mists."

Regardless, the first three stanzas seem at odds with themselves.  I don't know what you are trying to say, but I suspect you could say it more clearly I don't know if you have a problem stating what you mean, or are under the delusion that one should purposefully obscure what you are saying, because many people read poems from hundreds of years ago and deem them obscure, but people praise them as being great poems and so one mistakenly confuses that great poems are obscure. This is of course not so. People simply do not have the knowledge to understand that what is being talked about is probably common knowledge for people of that time period and they are fully aware of the meaning of the language.
either way, whether you are unable to express yourself clearly, or you are purposely obscuring the poem, both are errors and need to be corrected.  

At this point we also need to see a few more critiques from you.

Dale

It's interesting to me how many people have problems with lines like 'Mist, a prickly earth.' To me it's a rather obvious implied 'and'. The Mist isn't prickly, it's mist AND prickly earth. It's juxtaposition, without the need of muddling up the page with 'ands' or colons. Clearly 'mist' isn't earth either, so I thought the juxtaposition was rather obvious.

As for as you saying I'm purposefully obscuring, or am somehow not using 'common knowledge' or 'common language', I am honestly at a loss as to how such a simple poem could lead you to that conclusion.

As far as the confusing aspects of worm's translating the day - I'm speaking about the strange abstraction that occurs when we try to conceive of biology, and in this case specifically biological cycles. A worm going about decomposing organic matter into simpler pieces (like dirt) might as well be a translation - the way humans abstract biological systems in order to explain them is very similar to how language works. In this case, worms take things we can not use (more complex organic molecules) and turn them into simpler organic molecules we can use (things that are good for growing plants) in this way, I felt, was an interesting parallel to translating.

Because the subject of the poem deals with translation, and nature, I felt a really simple style was fitting. I thought the implied 'and' would be picked up easily, and I would retain a lyrical style that's more potent and direct. "Mists and prickly earth" seems much weaker than "Mist, a prickly earth".

---

Lucifer,

'm generally pretty lost when it comes to punctuation. I do like the capitalization. I wanted this to be read slow, with a pause at the end of each line. I'm not sure how to best achieve that.

In response to that comment, here is a suggestion which I will impose on the first stanza, but the same can be used on all stanzas.

Sparkling foam breaks on gravel clay;    the semi-colon works fine here.
pine a woolen Earth.                             don't see a reason to capitalize pine or have a comma  
—miles of dirt, miles of dirt—                 the third line is a refrain so it can be said parenthetically as this is like a sea shanty  

As someone mentioned, I see no reason for "pine" to be associated with "woolen."

In this one it makes a little more sense:

"Ancient worms translate the day;
Rock, a frothy Earth"

That is I can see that the worms translate "rock" into a "frothy earth."

In this one:

"Sea caps smirk at birds of prey;
Mist, a prickly Earth"

I see that maybe earth is being prickly as it smirks, but I see not connection to "mist," which should probably be "mists."

Regardless, the first three stanzas seem at odds with themselves.  I don't know what you are trying to say, but I suspect you could say it more clearly I don't know if you have a problem stating what you mean, or are under the delusion that one should purposefully obscure what you are saying, because many people read poems from hundreds of years ago and deem them obscure, but people praise them as being great poems and so one mistakenly confuses that great poems are obscure. This is of course not so. People simply do not have the knowledge to understand that what is being talked about is probably common knowledge for people of that time period and they are fully aware of the meaning of the language.
either way, whether you are unable to express yourself clearly, or you are purposely obscuring the poem, both are errors and need to be corrected.  

At this point we also need to see a few more critiques from you.

Dale

It's interesting to me how many people have problems with lines like 'Mist, a prickly earth.' To me it's a rather obvious implied 'and'. The Mist isn't prickly, it's mist AND prickly earth. It's juxtaposition, without the need of muddling up the page with 'ands' or colons. Clearly 'mist' isn't earth either, so I thought the juxtaposition was rather obvious.

As for as you saying I'm purposefully obscuring, or am somehow not using 'common knowledge' or 'common language', I am honestly at a loss as to how such a simple poem could lead you to that conclusion.

As far as the confusing aspects of worm's translating the day - I'm speaking about the strange abstraction that occurs when we try to conceive of biology, and in this case specifically biological cycles. A worm going about decomposing organic matter into simpler pieces (like dirt) might as well be a translation - the way humans abstract biological systems in order to explain them is very similar to how language works. In this case, worms take things we can not use (more complex organic molecules) and turn them into simpler organic molecules we can use (things that are good for growing plants) in this way, I felt, was an interesting parallel to translating.

Because the subject of the poem deals with translation, and nature, I felt a really simple style was fitting. I thought the implied 'and' would be picked up easily, and I would retain a lyrical style that's more potent and direct. "Mists and prickly earth" seems much weaker than "Mist, a prickly earth".