Analysis of The vagabond snipers
Gerrard Funley III 1975 (Taplow)
I met one once...
"A vagabond sniper".
He was old, in his sixties / seventies.
In military garb, and homeless.
Drunk too, completely...
And laughing in his precision glee of murderous ways.
I couldn't believe my concerns...
Realising this man was off his fecking tits,
By a doorway, in the open, with a history of high precision military kills to his name.
At least, according to his tongue...
Which was cackling with authenticity and dangerous history full of military experience.
You might think it unlikely...
But it's not unlikely...
Given the number of soldiers who suffered PTSD in the wars from America and England, causing them to end up on the streets.
He was a completely deranged man.
But was he unhappy?
No, he wasn't.
He was away with the fairies, and cackling quite happily to himself.
So as I walked away,
I was humbled...
Concerned for a moment I might be his enemy,
For unknown reasons...
And he shoot me too with a precision bullet from out of God knows where...
'How 'professional killer' must his life have been, to find such gladness laughing in tatty clothes on the street...
Sitting in dog shit...'
And then I realised...
The apex of the alternative conscii planes...
In believing men.
And how both are tolerated,
Under the allied defence council...
As something legitimate.
When you know what you're doing.
Scheme | A X X X B X X A X X A B B X X B C X X X B X X X X C X X X X X X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111 010010 1110110100 01001010 11010 01001010111001 11001101 11111111 101001010100110101001111 11010111 11100101000100100111000100 1111010 111010 10010110110100110100010101111101 110010011 111010 1110 1101101001001100101 111101 1110 0110101111100 10110 011111001010111111 1010010111111111100101101 10011 0111 0110010011 00101 0111100 100010110 1100100 1111110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,390 |
Words | 297 |
Sentences | 30 |
Stanzas | 32 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 32 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 7 |
About this poem
A tribute to the maddest, baddest, boldest men in Christendom, who fought long and hard with precision for a world some of them even enjoyed.
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