Analysis of Dark Star
Halley's Comet scuffed the night sky
a powder blur
the night Norman was born
“I came in with that comet,”
he used to joke
“I'll most likely leave with it too.”
I was named after him,
the first, the oldest,
the should- have- been son.
He taught me the horses,
the boxers, the card games.
I even picked the horse he won on.
Threw me The Racing Form
“Tell me what you like in the Derby”
I picked “Dark Star”, he went off at 26 to 1.
We stopped waiting for Norman
after a week went by. Feared he was
dead behind some tavern somewhere.
But the rent and grocery money
we needed- all gone[ too.
And Dark Star won the Derby
I looked for him; went to Lincoln Downs.
Asked for him at Narragansett Park.
Same answer--"He's following the horses"
He sent mom a postcard,“My car failed
on the bridge to Maine.I walked like Moses
into the Promised land." She tore it up.
Oh! Yeah, Halley's Comet?
Back on time in 1986.
Norman left the earth in 1970.
Scheme | X X X A X B X X C D X X X E B C X X E B E X X D X X X A F F |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (27%) Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 1101011 0101 011011 1101110 1111 11101111 111101 01010 01111 111010 010011 110101111 110101 111110010 111111111 1110110 100111111 1011101 101010010 110111 0111010 111111101 11110101 1101100010 1110111 101111110 0101011111 11110 1110 101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 958 |
Words | 187 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 30 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 24 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 6 |
About this poem
This poem is a sort of elegy for a father who was also an obsessive gambler and died an early death.
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Written on September 05, 2021
Submitted by norma_j on September 06, 2021
Modified on March 08, 2023
- 57 sec read
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"Dark Star" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/108762/dark-star>.
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