Analysis of My Good Hand Plays God
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA 1941
My thumb & index finger
frame a zero, then an 8
sleeping on its side, & I say,
Leonardo, show me how
the miraculous scapula
moves like a torn wing
half-fused, barely unstuck,
& a life dares to lift off.
Floating rib, boomerang flat—
if it comes back or not,
I don’t have the stomach
for doubt & vivisection,
reshaping flesh, muscle,
& tone into a portrait,
or mock-up of a machine
glimpsed on the edge
of destiny, a daydreaming
five hundred years early.
What if, born out of wedlock,
a silky caul over his face,
Leonardo brushed light under
skin of oils, science & art.
I could stand like man-X
moving toward night-
time, feet parted, ready to do
some one-handed magic,
singing Judas’s old plea.
My left hand holds up
a sketch, showing a way—
good hand & bad hand,
circle half-broken, let there be
a truce, embrace the fall.
The whole contraption of
gore & math, just here,
as I go over the blueprint,
hand raising the brain
to higher order, working
in the dark, step for step,
hovel to temple, & I draw
a cross down my chest.
Scheme | AB CX XD EX XX EB XX XX DF XX AX XX XX FX CX FX XX XX DX XX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (23%) Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 111010 101011 1011111 010111 00100100 11011 111001 011111 101101 111111 111010 111 010110 101010 1111001 1101 1100010 110110 111111 01011011 0101110 111101 111111 10011 11101011 111010 10111 11111 011001 1111 10110111 010101 010101 1111 1111001 11001 1101010 001111 1011011 01111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,156 |
Words | 229 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 20 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 19 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 39 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 10 |
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Written on 2020
Submitted by Drone232 on August 13, 2022
Modified on April 21, 2023
- 1:08 min read
- 36 Views
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"My Good Hand Plays God" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/134234/my-good-hand-plays-god>.
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