Analysis of Interface
INTERFACE
Before the sun toughens, the morning’s shrewd
A stretch of road lies parallel to a stretch of railway
A brook of raw sewer runs parallel to the railway
Make-shift growers subsidised to water their greens
A junkyard adjoins the trio from which throngs of
Pied crows and hogs thrive from the junk-pile
A crossroad cuts across all four essentially trimming
The drive between Umoja Estate and cbd of Nairobi
Commuter train, bus, and cycle link and thrive from here
Hawkers, peddlers, beggars scramble to meet target
Out of the jungle of things rattles a locomotive engine
Led by roaring trumpet and two glaring headlamps
Rips a tunnel his size through the air and splashes gusts
Of recycled air and shrapnel of dust along old, squalid estate
Rumbling, trembling, he clumsy dares intruders
Motorists scurry lest the train whelms the level-crossing
Prompted and agitated by impulse to kill
Like man-eater of Tsavo he roars and hammers
The diesel-powered engine casts a metal-crushing note
Long, live, bulky like a slope in motion croaks and grunts
Dark coils of carbon from combustion mode
Subserviently, a bus driver thirsts for fairness barred in
The sandwich of cars in front and trails behind
Regular, assured, growling monster made for
Triumph, made to subdue, made to make money
Absolute power’s a blend of shortcomings
Less skewed to instant brake the monster clunks!
Bus driver limps off the cabin and melts into the crowd
In abrupt change of course the mighty joins the meek
Wailing and groaning with distress, the beast
Away from the fond interface, affectionately grants her
Over hundred metres of ride, goring and trunk-lifting
Made to create wealth, she can’t work from home
Trembling with savagery, the train engine’s idling
Grooming bloody carcass like lion grooms a gazelle
Coupled with vestibules the segments look mesmerised
Vagrants and vendors scuffle in sorting out valuables
Men troop to get a first-hand perusal of the grand union
Good Samaritan administer the First Aid to the casualties
Some ferried to infirmary while the dead laid by the rails
In atonement for human error and trembling with tremor
The bus driver ruminates, totters his way to the priest
Locomotive driver unharmed and unalarmed surveys
The magnitude of ruin
Calm face ranks him off the wavelength of reproach
Not the first encounter with the kind of lawbreakers
Two drivers commission citizen for heaven express
A dozen souls rally in unison to the glory land
Two fire engines with siren gone off
Standby for any eventuality
Two rescue vans with strobe light on
Two police trucks with sodium lamp lit
Police cordon off the scene of interface and load
Bloody corpses on the trucks till we meet again
To grace the final rite
Muslims poised to get buried before the sunset
Christians stuffed in morgues pending
Post-mortem data and distant kith and kin.
Poet: Michael M Njoroge
Scheme | ABCCXXXDEXX FAXXGDXGXXHIXXEX XXXJKDXDXBX FXXKJXFXGXX XEXXHXXXDI X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10 0101100101 011111010111 011110110101 1110111011 0101011111 110111011 0110111010010 010110101110 0101101010111 101010101110 110101110001010 11101001101 1010111010101 10101010110111001 1001001101010 10010101101010 10010011011 11101111010 01010101010101 1110101010101 1111010101 10110111010 01011010101 10001101011 10110111110 101001110 1111010101 11011010010101 001111010101 1001010101 01101100100010 10101011100110 1101111111 10011000110100 1010101101001 101101011 10010100101100 111101101010110 101000100011101000 110101001011101 0010110100100110 01101111101 01010010101 010110 1111101101 101010101110 11001010011001 010110010010101 1101011011 1111000100 11011111 1011110011 011010111001 101010111101 110101 10111100101 1010110 11010010101 101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,887 |
Words | 484 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 16, 11, 11, 10, 1 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 393 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 80 |
About this poem
Synopsis This poem is entitled Interface and it plays ridicule on men who label their shortcoming as “human error”. If men would revere the Creator and regard their duty and role as morally ordained of God, the Earth would be homely and sweet to us all. Three positions, among others, need top our list of appreciation: 1. Health and Wealth. 2. Looking on us as Unique Creation. 3. Being Grateful to the Creator for the Opportunity and Ability to carry out our daily task. The poem is made up of five stanzas. In the first stanza, the speaker describes the public place with plainness from which we derive a negative and insipid picture. With the residents of the City of Nairobi, there is little to sing and prance about. This is brought forth by corruption, embezzlement of public resource and wanting management in the running of the City. In the second stanza the speaker, with no giving in, stretches his studious description for objects around here. Rattling, clunking, hammering, rumbling and more »
Written on June 01, 2022
Submitted by literaturedon707 on September 29, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:25 min read
- 48 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Interface" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/139565/interface>.
Discuss this Michael Maina Njoroge poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In