Dear Diane

There is a path that runs through
sugar grasses and corn mazes, by streets with
roaring disks of light, stars streaking through
uncounted trees and unmapped farmland -
this road winds through the dead places where
things grow and groan, where they whisper their
roots into life, where we share prayers until
dawn throws shadows on our fleeting faces.

We opt to travel by moonshine, when the polish
catches our instinctual eyes. We drip the miles behind
us, maddening ourselves on separate sides of the
River Stix. When will the lust pulsating from the
celestial Gods finally rip this road to a fork?
Would you plow through the center,
Could we jump over the moon?

Oh, I really enjoyed this one! I didn't completely understand it, but the images were beautiful and the ending gave me little shivers.

Red = dislike, green = like.

There is a path that runs athwart through
sugar grasses and corn mazes, by streets with
roaring disks of light, stars streaking through
uncounted trees and unmapped out farmland -
this road winds through the dead places where
things grow and groan, where they whisper their
roots into life, where we share prayers until
dawn throws pebbles' shadows on our fleeting eyes.

Athwart? Not necessary. You can just say "path that runs through". I liked the phrase "roaring disks of light".
The phrase "unmapped out farmland" is awkward. You can remove the "out" to make it "unmapped farmland"...much more agreeable.
The last bit about dawn and pebbles' shadows sounds really cool, but I have no idea what it means. I'd prefer to hear "dawn throws shadows on our fleeting eyes" because I couldn't visualize the shadows of pebbles bit.

We opt to travel by moonshine, when the polish
catches our instinctual eyes. We drip the miles behind
us, maddening ourselves on separate sides of the
River Stix. When will the lust pulsating from the
celestial Gods finally rip this road to a fork?
Would you plow through the center, could we
jump over the moon?

I'm assuming that when you say moonshine, you mean it like moonlight, not illegal liquor.
I didn't really understand what the polish catching eyes meant. What polish? Does it have to do with the moonshine? I also didn't understand how "instinctual" could be used to describe "eyes".
Little thing: It would sound better to say "the road" instead of "this road". The same could go in the first stanza.
I would put a question mark after "center", making "Could we jump over the moon?" a separate sentence.

I understand that there is a road...is it the, erm, "road of life"?
This is a great piece; the imagery stood out the most to me.

Colleen

Colleen pretty much sums up everything that i would have said... and i really did like the pictures i could see in my head.. well done on describing it!

~~*Judi*~~

Excellent job editing the first stanza!

In the second stanza: The "polish" part is still a bit iffy.
I like that you put the last two questions on separate lines, but they have a comma in between them even though the second one is capitalized. it doesn't follow the pattern of the rest of the poem and looks/sounds strange. I'd like to see a question mark or semicolon in between them rather than a period.

Good work!
Colleen

I love the imagery and outstanding ending. I'm sorry...maybe I'm just in a really good mood but I don't really have critique for this.

i enjoyed reading this. reading the original in cadmium's post, i could see the little differences he made, and they made a great deal of difference. losing some of the words that were not necessary meant that it didn't have the flow that the new editted version does have.

the second verse needs editting with the changes still, but i think what you wrote gave excellent images in my head, which is great

good work.