Analysis of THE NIGHT STALKER
Phil Roberts 1957 (Melbourne)
A creature from some elder lore
Stalks the alleyways by night,
Creeping through boxes and crates
That line the dingy alley, till;
Stretching batwings to take flight.
Beneath the creature passersby
Slowly go about their business,
Homeless, unemployed, elderly
Hoping to survive the winter;
Unaware of rapid nearing death.
The creature swoops down on unwary
Passers walking to their doom,
To grasp a victim in its talons
Then away before the others see;
A grizzly sight cast ‘gainst the moon.
Seeing friends from yesteryear
Though their friends are now long dead,
The homeless go with open arms
To welcome friends from better times;
Till blood will stain the alley red:
For soon as they are in its grasp
It changes back to its true guise,
A nightmare beast from elder days
That snatches images from memories;
To help it steal its victims' lives.
Winging silent through the dark
Hungry for some human feast,
Stalking loners as they go walking
Or couples returning from cinemas;
Unwary of the approaching beast.
A beast that lives for killing humans
Determined to feast upon the forlorn,
Human refuse discarded by society
Which only has time for the wealthy;
Not for losers who have been spawned:
Spawned by those who live around them
Governments and civilians alike,
And so the wastrels stagger on
Living in dank, dirty alleyways;
Until the creature devours them alive.
So the horror goes forever on
The stalker living many thousand years,
He crawls the sewers below the city
Coming up again to feast once more;
As the twilight brings night near.
The old, the homeless, the derelicts
All are the stalker’s hapless prey,
He reaps and rends and tears out throats
He disembowels his chosen victims;
To vanish one more with the dawning day.
THE END
© Copyright 2021 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Scheme | ABXXB CXCXX CXDCX EFXXF XXGXX XHXXH DXCCX XXIGX IXCAE XJXXJ XXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01011101 101011 1011001 11010101 101111 01010100 10101110 1001100 10101010 01110101 010111010 1010111 110100110 101010101 01011101 101110 1111111 01011101 11011101 11110101 11111011 11011111 0111101 1101001100 11111101 1010101 1011101 101011110 1100101100 010100101 011111010 0101101001 100101010100 110111010 11101111 11111011 100001001 0101101 10011010 01010010101 101010101 0101010101 1101001010 101011111 101111 01010010 11010101 11010111 1111010 1101110101 01 101010 100100010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,757 |
Words | 304 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3 |
Lines Amount | 53 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 133 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 28 |
About this poem
Horror poem. Dedicated to the memory of Darren McGavin (May 7, 1922 – February 25, 2006)
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Written on May 07, 2010
Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on June 10, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:31 min read
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"THE NIGHT STALKER" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/102352/the-night-stalker>.
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