Analysis of Durban, South Africa—Some Notations of Value
Metal giraffes march up the bluff
toward the lighthouse. In the moonlight,
whales, or their ghosts, litter the sand.
There is a museum by the park that houses
apartheid; contained in stiff wax dummies.
The tour bus stops on the road’s edge.
On the right a black town, the left Indian.
Pointing he says: This is the racial divide.
Stopping at the bar, the drink menu offers—
Red’s Divas only five rand each.
Each night the pounding sea reminds me
that, here, women are older than God.
These people carry their dead with them,
plastering them onto every met face.
Yet love hums like tuning forks
and the fading spreading sound
is the growth of something more.
Their absence is loud and I long
for the confetti flutter of butterflies.
Abattoirs litter the landscape with the sinister
air of murder, signs proclaiming: Zumba Butchery,
as though this is where the Zumba’s blood-
lust got the better of them.
The air conditioner in my room hums
a dirge to a sea too busy spreading rumors.
Death skips between street children
playing hopscotch in the traffic.
The woman singing in Zulu, in a Jamaican bar,
is calling down fire, calling down fire.
There is no contradiction.
Scheme | XXX XX XAX BX CX DX XXX XX ECXD XB AX XEA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (23%) |
Metre | 10011101 0101001 11111001 110010101110 010101110 01111011 10101101100 10111101001 10101011010 11010111 110101011 111011011 110101111 10011010011 1111101 0010101 1011101 11011011 1001010110 1100110100 111010101100 11111011 1101011 0101000111 011011101010 1101110 1010010 0101001000101 11011010110 111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,145 |
Words | 204 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 4, 2, 2, 3 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 77 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 17 |
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"Durban, South Africa—Some Notations of Value" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/108284/durban%2C-south-africa%E2%80%94some-notations-of-value>.
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