Analysis of The Headless Man
mom was a radically insolvent
courtesan of the underpass camps
exploited by a grim and grimy past
reckless as the day is long
hosting a tourism so shameless
her own union set her on fire
to prevent further such mortifications
I advised her to talk to her real self
and got 5 blank staring minutes
basically because she didn't have one
only an extremely accurate echo
but she was a rebel and I loved her
kept her head lice population down
just so she could tell me the occasional
bedtime story on an empty stomach
hear now the legend of the Headless Man
once and a long ago
lived a lonely man with no head
one of the many stigmatized gentry
in the long forgotten social media uprising
somehow he could see hear and gesture
even though the neck was a pink nub
but he was hung like a meatloaf
making maidens titter at the village well
sighing rolling their eyes gasping flushed
um wait where was I
ah yes ... he fell in love
with the Bodiless Woman of course
knowing she could be of some use
it's a story of egregious assumptions
a belching sewer of lust and depravity
a juggernaut of rash sensual ambition
um wait where was I
ah right ... in the village below
the holy men were belled into a caucus
around Rowena’s oracle head
they came as the ancient test required
to run barefoot across the fire pit
at Detroit Jimmy's Bad to the Bone BBQ
the winner was a few inches shorter
from the igneous victory tap dance
a ritual purification of the sense of motion
accompanied by stigmatas and signs of wonder
Detroit Jimmy married Nub and Rowena
in a cabbage patch ceremony under the stars
wicked little boy went Row
on their wedding night mud bath
work me like your first bag of fries
invited Nub in a spasm of disorder
and they rode upstate in his Rocket 88
the road spreading gently
like a great pastry
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Scheme | xaxxbcaxxdecxxxxefgxcxxxxHxxxxgdHebfxxxcxdcxxexxcxgg x |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110100010 110101 101010101 1010111 10010110 011010110 1011011 1010111011 0111010 1000111011 10101010010 1110100110 10110101 11111100100 110111010 1101010101 100101 10101111 110101010 00101010100010 11111010 101011011 11111010 10101010101 101011101 11111 111101 1011011 10111111 10101010010 010101100100 01011100010 11111 11001001 01010101010 0111001 1110101010 111010101 10110110110 0101011010 1010010011 01000010101110 01001101110 01101010010 001011001001 1010111 1110111 11111111 010100101010 011110110 011010 10110 1101010100100110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,854 |
Words | 346 |
Sentences | 3 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 52, 1 |
Lines Amount | 53 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 747 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 173 |
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"The Headless Man" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/164500/the-headless-man>.
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