Analysis of Once

Alan Scott 1953 (Southampton)




I
Once, I knew a soul                                                                                                             
clothed with the body of a woman,                                     
infinite in moods as the sea.

It was the spirit in that soul,
arranging itself like cold
Atlantic mist

from colliding atmospheres and moving
with ethereal sadness,
that finally depicted me.

II
Once, I felt: such intimacy
exposed the seething
addiction to being               

that once disturbed
by its own willingness,
flexed briefly,

like a pool-reflected image
that’s just been
stepped into.                          


Scheme ABXC BXX DEC ACDD XEC XXX
Poetic Form Tetractys  (45%)
Etheree  (35%)
Metre 1 11101 110101010 10001101 11010011 0100111 0101 10101010 1010010 11000101 1 11111000 01010 010110 1101 111100 110 10101010 111 101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 762
Words 93
Sentences 4
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 17
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 58
Words per stanza (avg) 12

About this poem

Written several lifetimes ago when I was a teenager. I think it was after a failed relationship but that's being speculative. I can however confidently say - it was at a time when both adolescent hormones and emotions were coursing unchecked through a pre-adult body and mind which is surprising given the calm and even tenor of the voice.

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Written on 1970

Submitted by scott.alan116 on May 12, 2023

27 sec read
81

Alan Scott

Raised in a number of parts of the world - Trinidad (West Indies) Lake District in England and finally South Africa. Writing has always been a passion - English was one of my majors at university and was designed for a career in journalism and novel writing before life got in the way. I ended up as a corporate executive in the manufacturing industry. I stopped writing poems about 20-25 years ago and now devote my spare time to writing screenplays - but the poetry in me still infuses my prose unabated. more…

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