Analysis of A Pearl Before Swine
Robert B. Repenning 1972 (Virginia)
Who let these heartless beasts into your home,
Into these pastel and eggshell rooms to pick at your
Delicate bones and your paleness, feasting on your flesh,
On your eyes and the mad sparks dancing within,
And your voice with its bookish seductive drawl,
Shot full of coy, with a twist of wanton lust?
Who would probe with such curious intrusions,
Impolite, without restraint, and pin you down so savagely
On black and white film, while peeling back the layers,
Fumbling at your un-buttons and pulling at your skirts?
What kind of scoundrel would paw at your body
Tearing at your threads, and so causally toying
With your sanity's frayed and loose ends?
Who would wind up your free spirit only to
Catch you unspooling with wild abandon,
And convince you to let down your guard
Saying things best left unsaid, or in private,
Secrets whispered best for lovers or victims,
Not to be strewn about, a pearl
Before these insufferable swine,
Boorish and insatiable, snouts rooting,
Lusting for another skin to sink their teeth into and
To suck off the marrow and flesh leaving a pile
Of milk-white bones, like broken china littering
An unswept linoleum floor, along with scattered wrinkled Pages ripped from your notebooks and several crumpled, Lipstick-stained cigarette butts?
Some careless someone left these lights on,
Even though no one lives here anymore.
They left you long ago, abandoned, long before
You snuffed out what little they had left,
Which they hadn’t pecked apart
With their ambitious beaks,
And vanished like the ghost
You always aspired to become,
Dispersed like fumes,
Fleeing like hunted words,
Fluttering on wind-beaten wings,
Above the place where the stormy sea swings
Against the rocks, on the shore and the constant roar, Searching for a quiet street where mercy could live and Your heart with all its collected, paper-thin murmurings Could finally be free, where without ambiguity, you could
Truly voice your liberation to the heavens and the hells
And to all of the liars caught between,
OUT! OUT! YOU PRURIENT LOT!
GET OUT OF THIS HOME!
GET OUT OF MY LIFE!
Scheme | ABXXXX CDXXDEX XXXXX XX EXXEX XBBXXC XX XXFFXCX XAX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111010111 011010111111 100101110111 11100111001 01111100101 11111011101 11111100010 00010101111100 110111101010 10011110010111 11110111110 1011101110 1111011 11111110101 11111010 001111111 10111011010 10101110110 11110101 011010001 1000100110 10101011111010 111010011001 111111010100 110100101110101011110101011011 11011111 101111101 111101010101 111110111 111101 110101 010101 1101101 0111 101101 10011101 0101101011 0101101001011010101110110111110101011110011101010011 10110101010001 0111010101 1111001 11111 11111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,150 |
Words | 395 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 7, 5, 2, 5, 6, 2, 7, 3 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 186 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
About this poem
I wrote this poem for a poetry workshop for Veterans. We had looked at the work of Anne Sexton and this was my reaction to Anne and her work, inspired also by the Peter Gabriel song, "Mercy Street." I incorporated some words and images from what we had read as a tribute and, also, a look at her work from the inside out.
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Written on February 27, 2019
Submitted by TheOutlawHalo on December 19, 2022
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 1:58 min read
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"A Pearl Before Swine" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/147692/a-pearl-before-swine>.
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