Analysis of Death Dreams
i had a dream where you died,
you said it was over but in the entirely literal sense
physically, it was over
you were gone; memory a whisper, your name riding on the wind
i had never
faced something so permanent
yet so momentary,
like being caught in a state of undress,
an image that only lingers because the image is hard to forget;
and it is just as inappropriate to say
i cant get the image of your tits in that
little black bra out of my head
as it is to tell the world
i don’t want to forget but
if his presence is now a ghost that looms over me, dictates all i do,
then what other choices do i have?
what remains is not necessarily a scar,
nor any other form of permanence
something more like a hiroshima shadow,
the simple implication that something
was there
and now simply isnt
or a grave where a body still remains
though the person is no more
and what about a body?
earth, once flesh, now earth;
and this once was what is was but now it is not
as though it all turned to ashes, poured down the kitchen sink;
and we simply pretended it didn’t happen at all
something in another life
another part of ourselves, in the scheme of life, only a flashing glimpse passing thru the window of a fast train
a momentary beauty not built to last, crumbling in your hands,
an image broken by a ripple, something starved into madness, the second before a supernova
and in the soft gore of it all,
i could tell my children at least that
i once knew something beautiful
Scheme | ABCDCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTAUVFWXYZ1 2 3 4 ZJ5 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101111 11111010001001001 10001110 1011000101110101 1110 1101100 11100 1101001101 110110100101011101 01111010011 11101011101 10111111 1111101 1111011 111011011110101111 111010111 10111010001 1101011100 101100101 010010110 11 01101 1011010101 1010111 0101010 11111 011111111111 11111110110101 0110010111011 1000101 01011001001111001011010101011 0100101111100011 1101010101010110010010010 00011111 111110111 11110100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,473 |
Words | 300 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 36 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,155 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 283 |
About this poem
This poem was written in response to a dream I had where my recent ex-partner committed suicide, and I went about my life simply with the idea of his death in my mind. Death dreams is about the grief one feels after a break-up, a grief that is always present no matter how it ends.
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Written on August 17, 2023
Submitted on March 23, 2023
Modified on April 18, 2023
- 1:30 min read
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"Death Dreams" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/154654/death-dreams>.
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