Piece musing on how one material can be two things, and the irony of what the it represents. Is this too technical for the average reader? Too alliteration in S2?

original:

Crystalline Carbon Comes Home

Anthracitic chunk, greasy, a present
to those naughty not nice, is scraped
from earthen caverns for burning.
Life is brief winter heat turned to ashes.

Some escapes shovels. Obsidian sheen,
quiet in veins, awaits sacrificial pressure,
squeezing the will to be coal, into
crystalline carbon’s body-centered cubic.

A diamond, its eye-piercing brilliance
is constant in time. No dust unto
dust return to humble beginnings,
far from molten iron’s fire.

Now it gets oohs and aahs, sitting
finger-proud for all marital eternity.

revision:

Crystalline Carbon Comes Home

Black chunks, stocking presents to
those naughty not nice, are scraped
from earthen caverns for burning.
Their life, winter heat turned to ashes.

Some escape shovels, lie quietly
in veins in Gaia’s bosom. They wait,
hugged and squeezed for a million
years into clear stone tears.

Diamonds, their brilliance constant,
have no dust unto dust return to
humble beginnings. Only mountings
on Tiffany prongs. Faceted, polished,

they get oohs! and aahs!, sitting
finger-proud for all marital eternity.

Yeah, stanza 2 is a bit much.

In general, this doesn't feel as clean as some of your work. You handle traditional prosody well, in general; this feels a little too ornate for me.

Thanks, Tony. "ornate" is a good adjective for this. I'll try and bring it down a level; might take a bit of thinking.

>

I stopped reading when you spelled the first word wrong.

AmyD wrote:

I stopped reading when you spelled the first word wrong.

from reading L's writing i actually think he meant that word. maybe a play on two words? i do believe the second stanza bogs the whole piece down though.

Thanks, amyD, for catching an embarrassing error. My dyslexia. Hope you will continue reading.

brownbwi, it looks like the second stanza needs work.

L.

It's funny you say ornate Tony! Because this poem oozes the need to be ornate. Bigger and bigger diamonds to sate the egos of married couples all over the world. Any who, I wanted to stop in and say that this poem breathes life to me.

A suggestion: maybe in S1L1 change "a" to "and"? It would work nicely for the double meaning of present...

Thanks, Tregal. I think you have caught some of the irony of coal and diamonds being the same except in form.

l.

moved under original

Hmm not to sure about the "black chunks" honestly Maybe "hard rock from earthen caverns"? I don't know

also "years in clear stone tears" maybe "stone-cut tears"?
L, I think you can do better than resorting to the word "Gaia's" Maybe a capitalized "Mother's"

Well this second version presents more crit. than the first for me anyways. It's still my favorite out of the poems posted in this forums so far. Good good write my friend.

Edit:I didn't put the line breaks in, but with some rearranging it gets more of a "buzz" for lack of a better word...

"Hard rock from earthen caverns, stocking presents to
those naughty not nice, and scraped for burning.
Their life, winter heat turned to ashes."

Thanks, Treagal, for the close read and suggestions. I think I'll wait on some more input before I change anything. The "Mother's" idea is a good one.

L.