Analysis of The Lawnmower's Lullaby (6/02/91)

William Goresko 1951 (Philadelphia, PA) – 2008 (Willow Grove, PA)



A perfect Sunday morning
In my little slice of suburbia;
Trees gently sway in the soft breeze
Reaching out to touch
The faint white ripples above,
These looking like the sandy floor
Of an azure sea;
The wind chimes, excited by this scene
Sing dumb praise
In warm, resonant tones
Joined by jays and cardinals
Dispatching domestic chores;
From above,
The sun smiles obliviously on all.

From deep within my shady grove
A jarring whine of discontent
Rends the balmy air;
Mower and trimmer rise up
In snarling complicity
To wreak uniformity on the world.
New grass, dashing dandelions
And carefree clover,
All to the chopping block go
As the bristling machines
Lend a patina of easy sameness.

Like distant thunder
The mower's roar echoes
Above the streets of my town;
Above bored and restless neighbors
Lounging in a patch of sun
They've wrested from an old oak;
Above barking dogs and kids on bikes.
It whispers to us at night
As we sit around our tv's,
Calling softly, rattling windows
As it nibbles and gnaws
At the edges of our lives,
Paring and paring, leaving us less,
As trees desert the horizon
And stars abscond from the sky.

But beneath the surface,
Buried and tangled underground,
The roots of chaos run deep.
Cunning and stubbornly resistant
To our poisonous persuasions
They lurk with artful patience
Waiting for a chink
To burst through and leave our lives
Streaked with wild variegations.


Scheme XXAXBXCXXXXXBX XXXXCXDEXXF EGXXHXXXAGXIXHX FXXXDXXIA
Poetic Form
Metre 001110 0110110100 11010011 10111 0111001 11010101 11101 011010111 111 011001 1110100 0100101 101 011111 11011101 01011001 10101 1001011 0100100 110100101 1110100 0110 1101011 1010001 1001011010 11010 01110 0101111 01101010 1000111 1101111 011010111 1101111 11101101 10101010 111001 10101101 100101011 11100010 0101101 101010 1001010 0111011 100100010 110100010 1111010 10101 11101101 1111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,350
Words 241
Sentences 7
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 14, 11, 15, 9
Lines Amount 49
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 282
Words per stanza (avg) 60
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Submitted by cuwoodford on April 29, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:13 min read
19

William Goresko

William Goresko was an avid landscape photographer, a lover of backpacking and the outdoors, a voracious reader of classical literature and ardent fan of classical music as well as 60s rock and folk music. He also loved cooking and watching Sixers basketball games. He was a floor sander by trade. In 1984 at age 32 he was rendered quadriplegic in a car accident and lived for 24 more years. He retained his love of life and had a strong will to live. All poems were written a few years after the accident, typed one letter at a time, using a sip and puff device. Poems were submitted by his wife Cheryl. more…

All William Goresko poems | William Goresko Books

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    "The Lawnmower's Lullaby (6/02/91)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/98713/the-lawnmower%27s-lullaby-%286--02--91%29>.

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