Analysis of Tragedy of a Clown.



Look there - tell me now
Do you see that sad clown?
She lowers herself down,
Tells the bartender her “usual - two rounds”.
She has no plans.
She has no friends.
She mutters below the somber jazz to herself,
“Yeah. This is how the day always ends.”

Head hung low in fine dining candle light
The neon circles ‘round her eyes signal she’s giving up her fight,
Her once famous inner spark is dimming - giving up its light.
Her once joyous soul ponders - trying to buy another night.

No more cars
No more shoes
No more sad, strange fights to lose.
Her tears bleed rivers of face paint down her cheeks.
“When will it all end?
This phony, sickening, saccharine grins.”
Always mocking this poor Clown from outside and within.
Honey don’t you know the clowns in the back never win?

A vision of mockery; now you’re scaring me.
Take your mirrors out onto the lawn in the morning.
Look doll - they’re on a laughing spree.
“Oh no I think they’re onto me.”
They see through her,
Now her eyes are pouring,
Tears of a Charybdis worthy stream.

No more cars
No more shoes
No more sad, strange fights to lose.
Her tears bleed rivers of face paint down her cheeks.
“When will it all end?
This phony saccharine grin.”
Always mocking this poor girl from outside and from within.
I know I told you the Clowns in the back never win.

In her drink,
Her heart starts to sink.
Oh what a sight,
I’ve never seen a Clown drunk.
This one true dichotomy,
This ‘what it is,’
And ‘what it ought to be,’
The Ringmaster takes folly in running out her luck.

Now the Clown - she stares down her rum,
And whatever that debate was - I think she knows it’s done.
In this here funhouse mirror of horrors,
With the lens of the clock,
This classic mental torture,
This Clown she became is the shock.
Now in the cave with her life’s closest vultures,
And their feathers she does caress,
She has little spirit left to muster,
For her audience and herself - a Clown’s iteration of Icarus.

And she left out that door.
I don’t think we’ll see her anymore,
At the very least not in a recognizable form.
But here we pay homage in verse of that Clown so forlorn.

What a sick fate for a Clown,
A chortle to become a chore.
And suddenly, on cue, the audience isn’t welcome anymore.


Scheme xaaxxbxb cccc DEEFGxhh ijiikjx DEEFGhhh llcxixix xxmnknmxkx ooxx aoo
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 11111 111111 110011 1010010011 1111 1111 110010101101 11110111 1110110101 0101010110110101 011010111010111 011011010110101 111 111 1111111 01110111101 11111 110100101 110111111001 1011101001101 010110011101 1110110010010 11110101 11111101 1110 101110 1101101 111 111 1111111 01110111101 11111 110101 1101111110101 1111101001101 001 01111 1101 1101011 1110100 1111 011111 010110010101 10111101 0101011111111 011110110 101101 1101010 11101101 10011011010 01101101 1110101110 10100001011110 011111 11111001 1010110001001 11111001111101 1011101 01010101 010011010011001
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,288
Words 482
Sentences 36
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 8, 4, 8, 7, 8, 8, 10, 4, 3
Lines Amount 60
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 190
Words per stanza (avg) 47

About this poem

This poem is about recognizing parts of oneself that one may not like. These pieces of personality may have always been a part of oneself, or they may have developed over time. Sometimes life and it’s circumstances force us to reinvent and become someone new; Tragedy of a Clown is about recognizing and confronting that reality.

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Written on November 06, 2023

Submitted by elizabethgroth23 on November 10, 2023

2:24 min read
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    "Tragedy of a Clown." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/175687/tragedy-of-a-clown.>.

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