Analysis of DAY THE WORLD ENDED: WHEN MY BROTHER DIED
I remember a day in July 1987
I received a tearful call from my brother's wife,
In hysterics, Julie quickly blurted out
That the previous night my brother John had died.
For my mother, my two sisters, and myself
The world came to an end that awful day,
And now after more than twenty-one years
The pain and tears haven't gone away.
He was riding to work for the late shift
On a bike borrowed from, Carl, his best mate,
When a drunken driver going way too fast
Saw his bicycle much too late.
Shattered and broken on the grassy verge
While the drunk driver sped straight on,
An elderly couple stopped to stay with him
Though he was dead before they reached John.
Still, it was good to know he had someone there
Waiting with him till the ambulance arrived,
With a broken neck and shattered spine, they said
There was no way that he could have survived.
The driver stopped that night at his therapist
Who had spent the night arguing with him,
So late the next day some good news came
When the hit-and-run driver turned himself in.
Yet it didn't help Carl who spent months in therapy
Blaming himself for lending John his bike,
Wrongly thinking if it hadn't been for him
Poor John would be here still alive.
And poor Lisa, John's young step-daughter
Suddenly found herself without a dad,
Finally taken to live in a Family Group Home
Mindful of the life that she could have had.
I remember going to identify the body
The relief I felt as we first looked upon,
A tall, pale-skinned man quite dead
Who did not look the least bit like John.
And just as I was thinking it
Cheryl said, "It's not him," with a sigh,
But even as the sweet words came out
We realised she was wrong, and started to cry.
Then came the trial, or should I say Circus?
When the driver produced his transsexual mate,
Trying to get released on an insanity plea
Though every one could see it was clearly fake.
Everyone except the judge who was wearing blinkers
And the driver was given just six months in gaol,
After twenty-one years the hurting hasn't stopped
And for those left behind the justice system failed.
THE END
© Copyright 2021, Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Scheme | AXBX XCDC XEXE XFGF XHIH XGXX JXGX XKXK JFIF XABA XEJX DAXX XXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10100101 101010111101 0101010101 101001110111 1110111001 0111111101 0110111011 010110101 1110111011 101111111 10101010111 11100111 1001010101 10110111 11001011111 111101111 1111111111 10111010001 10101010111 1111111101 01011111100 1110110011 110111111 10101101010 1110111110100 1001110111 10101110111 11111101 011011110 1001010101 10010110010011 1010111111 1010101010010 00111111101 0111111 111101111 01111101 101111101 110101111 1111101011 11010111110 101001101001 1011011101001 110011111101 10010111101 001011011101 101011010101 011101010101 01 101010 100100010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,106 |
Words | 395 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3 |
Lines Amount | 51 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 131 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
About this poem
I remember a day in July 1987 I received a tearful call from my brother's wife, In hysterics, Julie quickly blurted out That the previous night my brother John had died.
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Written on February 20, 2009
Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on August 30, 2021
Modified on March 10, 2023
- 2:00 min read
- 2 Views
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"DAY THE WORLD ENDED: WHEN MY BROTHER DIED" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/108158/day-the-world-ended%3A-when-my-brother-died>.
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