Analysis of Detour



Years on the journey,
Only to arrive at this.
The fire is no longer burning,
The stars were a reach and a miss.

My gun is full of notches,
And my mind is traumatized.
Memories are only blotches,
Of empty stares at the skies.

My future is obscured,
As the cars pass overhead.
My life has been detoured,
I would be better off dead.

Then one dark night,
When the reception was bad.
I thought maybe I might,
And a conception was had.

Continue aimlessly,
In this hell that I allowed.
Or ferociously fight,
For a life that is proud.

Hope my stomachs not queasy,
And I don’t have loose screws.
It will not be easy,
With only my life to lose.


Scheme ABXB CXCX DEDE FGFG AHFH AIAI
Poetic Form Quatrain  (83%)
Metre 11010 1010111 010111010 01001001 1111110 011110 10011010 1101101 110101 1011101 111110 1111011 1111 1001011 111011 0001011 010100 0111101 101001 101111 1110110 011111 111110 1101111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 641
Words 150
Sentences 12
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 20
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 81
Words per stanza (avg) 20

About this poem

I often contemplate what the circumstances were that led a person to give up on life and end up on the street. Was it a series of bad decisions? Then there is the thought about what it would take to get life back after it had been abandoned.

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Written on February 24, 2007

Submitted by JoseCanUC on March 12, 2024

Modified by JoseCanUC on April 27, 2024

45 sec read
12

Joe McLaughlin

Raised on a small farm outside of a small town in Texas, I was no stranger to work. It is this work ethic that has propelled my professional success but there is this other side of me. The side that deeply thinks about things. The side with an imagination and a desire to use my hands for more than just brute physical labor. more…

All Joe McLaughlin poems | Joe McLaughlin Books

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