Analysis of Now You See Them
John Jessup Kennan 1953 (Pomona)
Within our neighborhoods,
on our very streets,
there are little voids,
blanks in the atmosphere,
negative spaces.
You can see them,
but you can't see them.
They hold astute
conversations with animals,
choreograph insects,
ride tricycles on dark sidewalks,
while young mothers draw
curtains and watch
through windows, where
they can see them,
but they can't see them.
Within our neighborhoods,
in our very houses,
there are little voids,
shaped like
handprints,
fingerprints,
footprints.
Middle-aged women
scrub diligently
windows,
walls,
floors,
mirrors.
They clean them,
but they don't clean them.
Within our neighborhoods,
in our very homes,
couples young and old
with child-sized
holes in their hearts
peek through cracked doorways,
where child-shaped voids
sleep in little beds.
They look into each other's eyes,
and
smiles smiles
which are there,
but are not there.
Within our neighborhoods,
in our very garages,
tricycles
rust.
© John Kennan January 1991
Scheme | AxBxcddxxxxxxedd AcBxaffxgxxxxdd Axxxxxbxxxxee Axax g |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011010 110101 11101 10010 10010 1111 11111 1101 0101100 1001 11111 11101 1001 1101 1111 11111 011010 0101010 11101 11 1 10 1 10110 11000 10 1 1 10 111 11111 011010 010101 10101 111 1011 1111 1111 10101 11011101 0 11 111 1111 011010 01010010 1 1 110100 |
Closest metre | Iambic dimeter |
Characters | 957 |
Words | 148 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 15, 13, 4, 1 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 16 |
Words per line (avg) | 3 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 154 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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