I quote here without typography, because I don't know how to show it on stack
Morning breeze morning breeze murmurs / on water trembles leaves / young trees above green branches / birds cascade / sing sweetly the east is bright. / See, already light's white / the sea a mirror / to clear sky / light frost pearled / the high hills golden"
This is from the poet John Riley, written before his death in 1978.
We can add punctuation to the sentences and parse it that way. But I don't want to do that in this long poem Czargrad: I don't believe that is how he wrote the poems (just ignored punctuation), nor that it's the best reading.
When does unusual grammar suggest figuration, and how you can then think the sentence without an anything goes approach?
I think I can ignore 'cascade' and 'trembles' as figurative language.
Morning breeze morning breeze murmurs on "water leaves young trees" "above green branches birds sing sweetly 'the east is bright' ".
Leaving the breeze to speak.
The next sentence also has unusual grammar. I want to think of brightness standing for the water cycle. Leaving, most economically:
See, already precipitations white the sea a mirror to clear sky light frost discharged from the high hills golden.
Rain in the hills changes the sea from a mirror to a frost white.
What methods can we use to determine how unusual grammar in poetry should be parsed?
