Analysis of Baltimore Lions
The Seattle rain king, chasing beauty in the realm of night,
She can never come home again, must remain in Heaven.
Soundgarden, Love's Like Suicide.
Listen to the lion rattler shake, he smiles and walks among them.
He ran from them once, in the streets of Baltimore.
Close on his heels, he leapt
Into the company of strange companions with guns.
They had shining teeth--and he lost all of them.
They played a game of poker once.
By chance, he knew some things about powder and pack.
"I have a breast plate. Knock, knock."
Aim here, instead of here.
He knew the odds, but,
Always, what are the chances?
She said she needed to become a receptionist.
He could not pay for anything.
She brought him groceries and other pleasing things.
He said, no, stop that.
Black and white people,
Don't be too rude when she asks about your momma.
She may drop that purse, only a single time, and wait.
If you pick it up and hand it to her, that's enough.
Try not to be too bad, she's good enough.
Twisted sheets, baby.
A kid named "Money" wants to move into the neighborhood.
There is some grass and a few deciduous trees,
That turn black in October and whisper through the telephone lines.
That's enough snuff.
Lions in the doorways, block captains, dealing smack,
Cannot hide from the police cars.
"Do you party?", they sigh, dying for some decent conversation.
"No, thanks. Just knock if you need anything."
He has some soul food cooking on the kitchen stove,
His mother, raised on a ranch in Missoula, Montana,
Congratulates him on taking good, country care of himself.
He thinks about horseback riding and misses home.
Somebody steals his pickup truck.
Next, his wallet is stolen by a homeless veteran.
The fear in his lizard brain cracks into a siren in his head,
And everything plunges into the realm of night
Where is the goddess of flowers?
She came here once from the Philipine Islands,
She seemed cute, gave him a pair of children,
One white, one black.
The door knock only happens twice
Before he turns everything inside out,
Fearless and searching, how come
They keep bringing groceries and practically starve themselves?
He wrote poetry once, and said, "here."
She lost it all and was so frequently apologetic.
He never did miss her much, until he realized,
Every perfect being gets hit by a boomerang at least once.
These things keep repeating themselves,
On and on without any sacred, breakthrough realizations.
Tialoc, try to sleep.
Scheme | AB XC XX DC EF XG XX XH XX XI XJ JX XX XJ FX BH XI XX XB XA XX BF XX XK GX XE KD X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 001011101000111 11101101101010 11110 10101010011101011 11111001110 111111 0101001101011 11101011111 11011101 111111011001 1101111 110111 11011 111010 1111010100100 1111110 111100010101 11111 10110 111111101110 1111110010101 1111101110101 1111111101 10110 0111011101010 11110011001 111001001010101 1011 10001110101 10110011 111011101110010 111111110 111111010101 11011010010010 111101101101 11011100101 101111 11101101010100 0101101101010011 01010010111 11010110 111110110 1111101110 1111 01110101 011110011 1001011 11101000100101 111001011 11110111000010 110110101110 1000110111010111 11101001 10101101011010 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,472 |
Words | 508 |
Sentences | 42 |
Stanzas | 28 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1 |
Lines Amount | 55 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 68 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 15 |
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Written on November 14, 2022
Submitted by race.newport.way on November 28, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:33 min read
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"Baltimore Lions" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/145018/baltimore-lions>.
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