Analysis of Mass Graves
There isn’t a mass grave in my neighborhood
a creek has never flooded
(there is no creek, after all)
and bones have not surfaced.
A bull dozer never grinds to a halt
stayed by a smiling white skull.
The driver doesn’t jump down
doesn’t sift through the remains
kneeling there on the plot.
I once found a grey limb
jutting out from a hill.
I hoped it was a bone
maybe a femur from yore,
the last limb of a virulent Ute
protecting his home—
built by him
with his arms and legs
with the tools of the plains.
His scalp no more,
his skin long gone
but the bone remaining
still staking claim
for the living and free.
But it wasn’t a bone—
it was a tree limb
because there aren’t graves in my neighborhood.
There aren’t even real trees
or game trails;
there aren’t survivors
or failures
let alone corpses and fleas
And the only war left to fight
is against omnipresent me.
Scheme | AXXX XXXBX CXDEAXCXB EXXXF DCAGXHHGXF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110110110 0111010 1111101 011110 011101101 1101011 010111 111001 101101 111011 101101 111101 1001011 011101001 01011 111 11101 101101 1111 1111 101010 1101 101001 11101 11011 0111010110 1101011 111 110010 110 1011001 00101111 1010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 851 |
Words | 165 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 5, 9, 5, 10 |
Lines Amount | 33 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 136 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 02, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 1 View
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"Mass Graves" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/78219/mass-graves>.
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