Analysis of The Five-finger Boy



In his shadow cast by the campfire flames,
Everett Troy, he realized something strange.
Look as he might, search left and right,
all he found were fingers, not one thumb in sight.

A dark pointer was there, long and true,
Indicating directions as Troy wished it to do.
The shadow had a middle finger, as always the longest.
Outpacing the others, with little contest.

His ring finger was next in the projection.
That ephemeral form, he gave little attention.
Pinky stood last, spunky shadow small,
guarding the edge of the hand with its all.

But there, far at the end was one more,
one finger he’d never seen before.
It was as if lightning had struck Everett Troy,
That he was, in fact, a five-finger boy.

The outline was clear in the flickering light,
A finger rested unnamed, unusual, but somehow right.

Where did it come from? What was it like?
Would it let him grip the handles of his bike?
Was it strong? Was it sly?
Could it help him fling things through the sky?

Did it push? Did it shove?
Would it fit snuggly in his gloves?
Would it write clean lines?
Could it help him draw cool symbols and signs?

Certainly it could do all that and more,
After all, these things were what fingers were for.

Everett had had enough speculation,
He needed to see in flesh the source of his fascination.
And so he took a look down,
To see if his new finger could be found.

And low and behold to Everett Troy,
His new finger was there, confirming his joy.
He was a five-finger boy!

That just left one last question to strike him dumb,
Everett Troy, he couldn’t find his thumbs.

~~~~~~~~~~
I did a reading of the poem and posted it on Youtube.
Here is the link if anyone is interested in hearing it.
https://youtu.be/_wct3qOuo6Y


Scheme XXAA BBXX CCDD EEFF AA GGHH XXII EE CCXX FFF XX XXH
Poetic Form
Metre 011110101 1001110101 11111101 11101011101 011011101 100010111111 0110101011010 1001011010 11101100010 1010011110010 10111011 1001101111 111101111 110110101 111110111001 1110101101 0111001001 0101001010111 111111111 11111010111 111111 111111101 111111 1111011 11111 1111111001 1001111101 10111011001 1001101010 11011010111010 0111011 1111110111 0100111001 11101101011 1101101 11111101111 100111111 1 110101010010111 110111011000101 11111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,686
Words 316
Sentences 32
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 2, 4, 3, 2, 4
Lines Amount 41
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 110
Words per stanza (avg) 26
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Submitted by D.F.Rito on June 13, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:34 min read
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