Analysis of Recursion
The narrow hallway was deserted, dark, and still.
I made a careful entrance through the nearest door,
encountering a little room that might instill
a sense of dread about the impulse to explore.
Inside a door marked 'A' I felt a fit of pique
upon encountering another door marked A,
and then a steady stream of A rooms, each of bleak
design, with B's inside the A's -- an odd array
of rooms with no detectable escape in sight:
Door A, Door A, Door A, Door A, each time a B
inside the A, a lock to block return, my plight
recurring repetitiously, a litany
of walls and doorways, first in one room, then the next,
until I found myself unable to maintain
lucidity. And so, perspiring and perplexed,
I crumpled limply to the floor amidst insane
desires to wreak destruction (though except for doors
no targets were available). With gasping breath
I kicked a Doorway A, and there in metaphors
of Satan's fathoms loomed a sight defying death:
a great abyss, an endless plummet to a black
profundity that rendered me a quivering
and helpless soul; an all-consuming cul-de-sac
that forced me back against the wall and wavering
between the two extremes. Then unexpectedly
Door B was open! In a rush I bounded through --
as if the final A room had ejected me --
to find another open B, and déjà vu
unswervingly embraced me as I quickly stepped
from room to room to room as every Doorway B
reopened and released me, and I fairly leapt
through blurry thresholds like an inmate running free:
Door B, Door B, Door B, Door B, each time the B
extinguishing the pointless presence of an A.
My single-minded function as evacuee
propelled me through the doorways till the entranceway
that long before seduced me from the narrow hall
was safely out of reach. And in an atmosphere
of resurrecting stillness, now, I can't recall
the purpose or condition of my being here.
Scheme | ABABCDCEFGFGHIHIJKJKLMLMGNGNOGOGGDGPQRQS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01011010101 110101010101 010001011101 011101010101 010110110111 010100010110 010101101111 011101011101 111101000101 101010101101 010001110111 01010100 11011011101 01111010101 010001010001 11011010101 0101101010111 110001001101 11010010100 11101010101 010111010101 111010100 010111010111 111101010100 01010110100 111100011101 110100110101 110101010111 101111101 111111110011 010001101101 1101111101 111111111101 010001010110 110101010100 011101101 110101110101 11011100110 1010101111 010101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,862 |
Words | 344 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 40 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,457 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 332 |
About this poem
A dreamlike passage through recurring rooms.
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"Recursion" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/161252/recursion>.
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