Analysis of Guilt
Todd Vanisacker 1969 (Michigan)
He let himself in,
into his house,
his shelter
from the confusion
of everyday life.
With the door locked
and the curtains drawn,
he shrugged off the day
like he would a sodden robe,
feeling the uncomfortable weight
leave his shoulder
and drift away forgotten.
Her ghost had been there again,
he could see her silhouette
traced in the air.
Always hovering,
close by,
unrelenting as a summer storm.
Not a real apparition,
he had not take leave of his senses,
he knew fantasy from reality.
She wasn't really there,
she wasn't haunting him
from beyond the grave.
The hellish reality was
she was haunting him
from within his memory.
Time had gone by
but these feeling
had never faded
or eroded,
No passage of time
or act of penance
could assuage these memories.
Two years had passed,
seeming both like a second
and a century,
since that fateful day.
The stupid argument,
the unfounded accusations,
his anger flaring up
faster than his logic could
extinguish it.
He had only used his words,
thank God his hands
had stayed rigid by his side,
but his words were enough.
She had left,
fled
to be precise.
His words,
inspired by his rage,
had chased her from their home...
in tears.
By the time he calmed
and regained control,
by the time
he realized
that he had been
wrong and unfair,
she was gone.
Gone from their home,
their marriage,
and this life.
She should never have been driving,
in tears and upset,
she never saw the truck
that ran a red light
and took her away,
before he could make amends.
Before he could say
that he was stupid,
and wrong,
and sorry,
she was gone.
But not really gone,
not gone forever,
because not a day went by,
to be honest,
few hours went by,
when he didn't feel her there,
blaming him.
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010 0111 110 10010 11011 1011 00101 11101 1110101 100010001 1110 0101010 0111101 111001 1001 1100 11 01010101 101010 111111110 11100110 110101 110101 10101 010101 11101 1011100 1111 1110 11010 1010 11011 11110 1011100 1111 1011010 00100 11101 010100 0010010 110101 1011101 0101 1110111 1111 1110111 111001 111 1 1101 11 010111 110111 01 10111 00101 101 110 1111 1001 111 1111 110 011 11101110 01001 110101 11011 01001 0111101 01111 11110 01 010 111 11101 11010 0110111 1110 11011 1110101 101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,629 |
Words | 313 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 82 |
Lines Amount | 82 |
Letters per line (avg) | 16 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,338 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 313 |
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