Analysis of Hollow, Stump, Hidden, Still
My letters you’ve known, you’ve known me, jagged, jetties, my letters always killed, you’ve known me - whether typewritten prose or stumped utterances drug over with a knife - it’s overdue, expectant, it’s unwritten, for you, to you, and I know it, and I’m sorry but I’m buried, I’m a hollow, hidden moonshine still and I’m silent.
You’ve known me, picture blue tarp tailgate pools, me, pitting peaches and spitting in the pastor’s pulpit carpet, me, preaching blasphemy and branding nonsense for sale - if only to swallow the largest-mouth fish whole.
I orchestrate, I detest, I never digest, I break the sharpest rib bones, splinter casks, wear an oak barrel as a dress, I do not impress, I incandesce, Indian-give tight gripped pithy church plate offerings, and I’m sorry still - but a crow has no covey and no good excuse to go back and float, to count the cattails.
And I can only be sorry now, uncertainly sure how to drown for you, set lousy with these words I’ve so often sounded out, and no, I can’t, no, it’s familiar and shrill, like a saw-blade slipping knots not meant for a paper mill, so now don’t waste your bird shot.
Nothing about me is what I believe you’ve dreamed, such a severe inelegant preen, no naturalist’s photograph, no time to kill, no moment to capture a still-life in oil, no postage stamps to send or sell, no Audubon-sponsored award winning imagery, and that’s what I mean - no number of easel-barring arm-tucked avian enthusiasts could carry enough duct tape to fix what’s broken in me, I mark the most underserved.
You knew me, know me, I’m moccasin-mouthed, thick and black scaled, slither fireside beside screaming cicada creeks, they keep the loneliest of my secrets - cypress swimmers in blistered water, but maybe I like it that way, bent and unsound, stirred yet stagnant - you should not search for a drink, and please, please, unceremoniously wish, to forget me.
Delivery, letters, I meant it, for a moment that mattered, sat a spell, brick cracked husked pecans as they fell, too hardened myself to spit out the bitter brown shell, yelled some promises over the swamp, swelled, wished I was your nested house finch - loyal, content, not directionless, but I’m not, I’m honeycombed hornets, passenger pigeon mercenaries - honest extinctions of all my hired help, dusty flight feathers, framed, and I cannot perform, and it’s heavy, I know, it’s that lead shot, snow globe,straw-stuffed, it’s glass-cased cadavers, numbered curates on tiger oak shelves, admired, almost caught, but not.
Genuinely eastbound sometime to you, maybe last month, cut my tongue, intentions spine-spelled and I wanted to be bookend bound, a forever collection of sorts, a glazed set of salt and pepper ceramic spice shakers, thinking I could handle something delicately, for once, but I would not, my hands - arthritic, anesthetized, paralytic, rigid, I admit it, and still I cannot explain myself.
A sorry ass I guess, at best, unyoked, unworthy, untethered, a danger, a graying donkey, hunched, diabetic, listless, drunk, lowing on the railroad tracks, copper-crowned, a busted cedar truck, begging to be hit head-on or fed, lazy gaze, inoperable and unwound, a single lobe prohibitory liver, scar-tissue, a jake-leg deception, maybe thumbed, a sweet tasting poison in a hollow, hollow stump, a temperance movement, a snare drum hit with a dull hatchet, a temporary head thump.
I’d swallow, I swear, if I could, I would, if I could, I swear.
Scheme | X X X A X X A X X X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011111111101111110101111000110101110101010101111011101101110101010110110 11110111111010010001010101101000101011110110010111 110101110011101011101111101011110111100111101110001101101111001101111011101 0111011010100111111110111111010101111101001101110111101011111111 1001111101111001111100010111111011001101110111111100100110100011111101101011100010110011111010011101001 1111111001101110100110010111011110101001010110111111001111011111010110100011011 010010111101011010111101111110111101011111001001111111011101010100111111010010100100101111011011010110010110111111111111010101110110101111 10001111101111101011011011110010010110111101001011010111010100011111111010101010101101110011 0101111110101010010101010101101011101010101101111111101010000010101010010110110101010110100010101010010011110110010011 110111111111111 |
Characters | 3,526 |
Words | 602 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 10 |
Letters per line (avg) | 269 |
Words per line (avg) | 58 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 269 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 58 |
About this poem
Historical events and regionally specific images representing the colloquial culture and natural environment of the American Southeast reflect the lived experience of the author and are used to recount unrequited love - 20 years after leaving Georgia the author returns to visit an old friend and her childhood home, finding he may still be in love with her. She is only in love with her choice to leave and her interpretations of what has become beautiful with time, loving a stigmatized and hidden history but knowing it’s best left behind. more »
Written on November 17, 2022
Submitted by cannondaughtrey on November 23, 2022
Modified by cannondaughtrey on December 12, 2022
- 3:00 min read
- 104 Views
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"Hollow, Stump, Hidden, Still" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/145736/hollow%2C-stump%2C-hidden%2C-still>.
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