Analysis of The foxhole
The silence...
The stillness
Akin to shadows, long fingers reach
Warriors and I
Lie here in the hallow
Fear…beside us, beseech!
Where is the enemy?
Whispers seem to ring out
Lips from my fingers, keeps head from arise
To quell eager peering about
I am a boy
But, this night, man become I
I and my buddies…
Too young, aren’t prepared to die
Onto their arms I do grab
Keeping their lives from growing all too short
Then, echoes…echoes. ..Breaking the silence of the still
A loud shot! Reports….
The one…
Then two!
A hail of missiles, I bring up my gun
Dirt spraying from every direction, which way do I shoot?
What I do not have…is…
Time! Time to think
I throw up my machine gun, blindly, not looking…
Squeezing the trigger, RAT TAT TAT… in frenzy, RAT TAT TAT…spitting instinct
Adrenaline rushing, surging!
Beads of sweat freefall to roll
Fingers tighten, muscles tauten
Madness besieging to depths of soul
Then my redden swelling ears take heed
From behind comes most frantic, deafening scream
Victory, exhilaration, hopes of my enemies all relieved!
It’s Johnny who’s been hit! Red river flows his crimson streams
I’m sobbing; I’m cradling him and shouting “YOU CANNOT DIE!”
Then I whisper…come back to life “Johnny, please, Johnny please"
Unnoticed to me, the stillness returns once more and then a paper…a letter… silently floats to the floor
It’s the words like bullets that hit me, penned from his wife…
“I love you so much, the war will be over in just a short time; make sure you come back to me…
Come back to me alive”
Scheme | XXABXA CDXD XBEB XXXX FXFX XXGX GHFH XXX XBE XXCX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (28%) |
Metre | 010 010 01111101 10001 110010 101101 110100 101111 1111011101 11101001 1101 1111011 10110 11100111 1011111 1011110111 1101010010101 01101 01 11 0111011111 110110001011111 111111 1111 111101110110 100101110101111010 01001010 111111 1010101 100101111 111010111 10111101001 1000010111100101 11011111011101 110110010101101 11101111101101 010110100111010100101001101 1011101111111 11111011110010111111111 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,539 |
Words | 272 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 119 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:21 min read
- 1 View
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"The foxhole" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/86741/the-foxhole>.
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