Analysis of Silhouette of a Street Poet



we can’t do good to be remembered, we must do good in spite of being forgotten.
just as the dead cruise across the pristine grass
toward a dream that looks back at them ambivalently,
so too must we proceed without the comfort of guarantee.
let me retell my story:
I was thinking of the rain on the windows
in the clouds
when I was born in a droplet that pummeled into ground.
I wasn’t an angel, I wasn’t a god— I was just a raindrop
sipping on your shoe. you don’t know me anymore.
I don’t know you    anymore. we find out our lives
are plastic grocery bags
scuttling in the Target parking lot—
eaten by wind. we find there’s no elaborate course
out the mind, there’s nothing waiting
on the chain’s other side.
open up the hallways
and you’ll find the seasons died
in the fluorescent lights.
and something in the way the bulletin board
pales
will push me over the edge
til I read this poem on this street corner
in hopes my vacant breaths
may do better in a stranger’s hands-
that they may derive some good
from them.        and for a moment,
they’ll tilt their heads
the same way you did.


Scheme ABCDDEFGHIJKLMNOPOQRSTUVWXYZ1
Poetic Form
Metre 111111010111101110010 11011010101 0101111111 11110101010101 1101110 11101011010 001 11110010110011 11110110111101 10111111101 111101111101 1101001 1000010101 101111110101 10111010 101101 10101 0110101 00101 01000101001 1 1111001 11111011110 011101 111000101 1110111 1101010 1111 01111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,122
Words 220
Sentences 11
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 29
Lines Amount 29
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 844
Words per stanza (avg) 215

About this poem

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Submitted by jackson-otterberg on October 10, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:06 min read
44

Jack Otterberg

Jack Otterberg is 18 going on to 19. He is an amateur poet trying to find his voice in an effective way. more…

All Jack Otterberg poems | Jack Otterberg Books

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    "Silhouette of a Street Poet" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/143538/silhouette-of-a-street-poet>.

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