Analysis of The Thought That Lingers: Part Ten



In pondering the fate of man
In the Betwixt and the Between
In pondering the thought that lingers yet
The thought of man who would be god
Let us return to the myth of Oedipus.

The myth of Oedipus reveals
Man’s warlike urge
A son slaying his father
Possessed by Theban curse
Of Spartan warriors.

For did not Cadmos slay a beast
Planted its tooth
And spawned a warlike race
Creating bloody war
Among the tribes of men?

And did not sons of Oedipus
Two rival sons
Slay themselves in battle
With poor Antigone
Condemned to die alive?

This is the nature then of man
A mythic god
Slaying … and being slain
A man of beauty made lame
Wounded by his own ploy of madness.

Man indeed is the architect of war
The Master Builder
Designer of his fate
Lord of his destiny
Constructor of his world of chaos.

He labors at his brutal craft
Conspiring night and day
With schemes of mass deception
As foil to wage his war with nature
Whose desire, alas, is only that of peace.

His reasoning drives the medium of the message
Forged by the craft of Internet
The driving force of this Übermensch
To which we are all slavishly bound
To which we are all condemned.

What irony; man’s will is sacrificed by man himself
Who no longer ponderously thinks
Who harbors thoughts without reflection
Who is so hooked to the media’s subterfuge
That he becomes befuddled by its message.

Upon this devious artifact of man
This scroll we call the Internet
Man is inspired to write his fairytales
He weaves ferociously a web of myths
Consumed delightfully by global man.

Caught in this web of deception
This monstrous labyrinth
Of modern myths and fairytales
Man must turn to soul within himself
With hopes of finding deeper truths.

Alas! Incessantly man wages war
With man himself; his Inner Self
The victor he declares is indeed destroyed
The vanquished is the birthright of his soul
The puzzle is not solved.

Beware! The medium of life is desiring of peace
The message we project is that of war
Our struggles are against ourselves
Our egos battling with the indwelling soul
A warfare of the Betwixt and the Between.

War, alas, becomes our legacy
To repeat the sins we swore we would forsake
What irony! Mankind seeks to conquer outer space
His inner world of psyche yet abandoned
That is the bitter thought that lingers yet.


Scheme ABCDE XXFXX XXGHX EXXIX ADXXE HFXIX XXJFK LCXXX MXJXL ACNXA JXNMX HMXOX KHXOB IXGXC
Poetic Form Tetractys  (26%)
Etheree  (20%)
Metre 01000111 00010001 0100011101 01111111 11011011100 01110001 111 0110110 01111 110100 1111101 1011 01011 010101 010111 01111100 1101 101010 110100 011101 11010111 0101 100101 0111011 101111110 101101011 01010 010111 111100 010111110 11011101 010101 1111010 111111110 101001110111 1100101001010 1101110 0101111 111111001 1111101 1100111101101 111011 110101010 111110110 11010101110 0111001011 1111010 1101011110 1101000111 0101001101 10111010 11010 1101010 111110101 11110101 0101001101 11011101 01010110101 010101111 010111 010100111010011 0101101111 1010101001 10101001011 0110010001 1010110100 10101111101 1100111110101 11011101010 1101011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,330
Words 458
Sentences 17
Stanzas 14
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
Lines Amount 70
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 132
Words per stanza (avg) 29

About this poem

This 14-stanza confessional poem, “The Thought That Lingers: Part Ten,” is Part Ten of a collection of twelve poems that are laden with interconnecting ideas and with the interweaving central theme of “The Thought That Lingers “ (hence the title of the entire series of twelve poems), forming altogether an anthology of metaphysical, philosophical, existential poetry that was composed in the year 2000 and now published on poetry.com.

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Written on October 10, 2000

Submitted by karlcfolkes on April 16, 2024

2:17 min read
15

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Liebe Mili’ (translated into English as “Dear Mili”), Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

All Karl Constantine FOLKES poems | Karl Constantine FOLKES Books

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    "The Thought That Lingers: Part Ten" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/185454/the-thought-that-lingers%3A-part-ten>.

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