Skills
Blondin made a fortune walking back and forth
over Niagara Falls on a tightrope—blindfolded,
or inside a sack, or pushing a wheelbarrow, or perched on stilts,
or lugging a man on his back. Once, halfway across,
he sat down to cook and eat an omelette.
Houdini, dumped into Lake Michigan chained
and locked in a weighted trunk, swam back to the boat
a few moments later. He could swallow more than a hundred needles
and some thread, then pull from between his lips
the needles dangling at even intervals.
I can close my eyes and see your house
explode in a brilliant flash, silently,
with a complete absence of vibration. And when I open them again,
my heart in my mouth, everything is standing
just as before, but not as if nothing had happened.
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Submitted by Nazetel on September 01, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 40 sec read
- 5 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XAXXA XXBX B XXXXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 733 |
Words | 134 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 4, 1, 5 |
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"Skills" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/108273/skills>.
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