Karl’s Labor's Lost - edit2

[alonso ramoran]

Hi dukealien,

Enjoyed the rhythm of this piece. Comments below.

Karl’s Labor’s Lost


Fuel-oil and later gasoline
(its distillate) excused us from
a Marxist coup d’etat for they Comma before "for"?
required no stokers, men to throw
black coal on fires for others whom is "black" necessary here? Maybe you can use some other descriptor here for coal, or just replace with "their" or something of the sort.
they couldn’t help but envy for This sentence seems to start to drag on and get convoluted here. The multiple and different uses of "for" may contribute to that effect, but I think the dense packing of ideas and scenes here is definitely the cause for me.
brute muscle power they employed
for pennies as if stokers had
no minds resentment could consume.

I don't know if you do this, but something I like to do when writing a poem is if a sentence seems to get long-winded, I write it out as a normal sentence and read it as such. Sometimes all those line breaks muddles artistry with unnecessary complexity and it becomes hard to tell what's what. Here's how the above stanza would look:
Fuel-oil and later gasoline (its distillate) excused us from a Marxist coup d’etat for they required no stokers, men to throw black coal on fires for others whom they couldn’t help but envy for brute muscle power they employed for pennies as if stokers had no minds resentment could consume.

Instead, petroleum ran slick
from fields which paid their drillers well Nit, but I'd use "that" instead of "which" here.
through pipes to far refineries
or into ships that burned it neat–
no sweating stokers to resent
their exploitation, or dark pits I like "dark pits"
of sullen miners primed to strike.
When stokers’ sons drove motorcars Comma here?
their envy failed, and Marx retired. Don't think a comma is needed here.

Karl’s Demise


Fuel-oil and later gasoline
(its distillate) redeemed us from
a Marxist overthrow for they
required no stokers, men to throw
black coal on fires for others whom
they couldn’t help but envy for
brute muscle power they employed
for pennies as if stokers had
no minds resentment could consume.

In place of coal, rock-oil ran slick
from fields which paid their drillers well
through pipes to far refineries
or into ships that burned it neat–
no wretched stokers to resent
their exploitation, or dark pits
of sullen miners primed to strike.
When stokers’ sons drove motorcars
their envy failed, and Marx expired.

Alternate title:  "Oil, Fool!"   

Cheers,
Alex