[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

You could, but I'd be on you like a ton of bricks …

Pile ’em on!

Originally Posted by Matt Q

I've been thinking about it too much now to get a clear sense of it!

My brain is beginning to get tied in knots over this too. On the one hand, I can’t think of an adjective (not derived from a verb) that would pass your test. On the other, “underground” is an adverb here, and adverbs can modify adjectives, so what’s wrong with it? If I can say “a deeply sunken cesspool,” why not “a cesspool sunken deeply”? Anyway, there is something that bugs me about the line, though it’s not as clear to me as it is to you.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

"lurking" certainly revolves the issue I think exists with the existing line: it’s now very clear what part of speech it is. And it jibes with "hidden". There's maybe also "buried", which also jibes with hidden. Though since "hidden" is already in the stanza, I guess "stinking" might be an option too. Or "feeding"?

All good suggestions. I’d use “wallowing” if it fit.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

… it’s not that clear which is figurative and which literal. Are they literal pigs that are being likened to cesspools? The colon structure would normally suggest that I think.

I don’t see why the colon favors one over the other, and I was hoping I could rely on readers to figure it out. If I listed

sirens
foghorns
steam/smoke
buildings
swine
cesspools

… and told you one of the last two items didn’t fit the picture, would it really be a problem? I’m not wedded to the colon, of course. Would another mark of punctuation do better? A backward-pointing colon maybe? ))

[Matt Q]

I don't know that it's necessarily the colon, as such, but the order. A comma doesn't seem to change anything, for example. Absent any words to clarify the relationship, it reads to me as if the pigs are being portrayed as cesspools, not the other way around.

And the poem does describes a scene from a former time, and also a waterfront. Literal pigs aren't out of the question. Well, OK, I did grow up in town that from the 1700s until my childhood was dominated by a huge bacon and pork pie factory at its centre, slaughterhouse and all, so maybe that's just me

Still, it can also be read that neither the cesspools or the chomping pigs are literal.

Anyway, yes, given time, a reader may well figure it out, but I don't know if that's the best endorsement.

I don't see any easy tweak that keeps the metre, but I reckon you have do other options if you rewrite. Here's a rough attempt at making the figurative relationship clear.

Hidden yet more shamelessly from view,
underground in gloom, the day’s excreta
fattens chomping hogs of cesspools through
orifices of sewage (spewing?) cloaca.

Ok, it's very slant B rhyme, and is maybe too scatological. And I've just realised that "cloaca" is singular so the rhyme doesn't work! Still, it might be worth having another crack at that stanza.

best,

Matt