Analysis of The Thought That Lingers: Part Eleven
Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)
The thought that lingers in our times…
Is that of war; in times of peace.
Wars of every culture…
Wars of tribes, wars of nations.
Wars too of religion.
Then there are wars of gender, wars of hatred.
And there are always wars of passion.
There are always wars against liberty.
There are wars and rumors of war.
There are wars of the human heart.
These wars deny us freedom.
These wars plague our souls.
These wars bring us death in their wake.
These wars invoke greed and selfishness.
These wars diminish us.
These wars create a strident theme of theft.
A theft of everything that makes us human.
These wars limit our choices…
Negate our moral fortitude.
These wars create our own purgatory.
And yet a child of war can lead the way.
A wounded war torn child…
Can turn men’s hearts from warfare.
Can offer us another, even better choice
Can show us how, by loving, we can care.
Let us now turn to look upon such child.
A war torn child; rising from the ashes to compose —
To compose her self to write…
With bombs bursting in the air, she writes…
Bleeding the pages of her diary with love.
Lodged as she is, so hidden in her ‘Secret Annex’…
Her hiding place becoming her Pandora’s Box.
A place not of comfort, but a catacomb…
A place to garner strength
To petition insight even in greatest darkness.
This is our heroine of the holocaust.
This is our maiden of the Secret Annex
Ensconced, enclosed; enveloped by the scourge of war.
This is the story of Anne Frank…
Whose diary will be an account of courage amidst warfare’s atrocities.
And so a diary of warfare in sooth…
Becomes indeed a diary of peace and love.
A diary of finding light…
Even in the greatest darkness.
A handmaiden’s diary to transform men’s hearts.
“O Dearest Anne Frank…
While encased in ‘Dora’s Box…
Favored by Mercurial spirits to write.
Your words of passion burn evermore in our hearts.
Invigorate our souls with newfound hope.
“O Dearest Anne Frank…
Promethean Hope you provide us.
Olympian dreams you raise up…
To emblazon us with love.
To keep Hope still alive.
“O Child of Hope, O Child of Love…
O precious war torn child…
O all ye children of the world.
You are our legacies of hope.
You are the prize we have; and must keep.
“O Ancient Ones…
Let our children’s dreams not be deterred!
Let their innocence prevail!
Let their wisdom serve as guide!
To stir men’s hearts anew to love.
“When Hope is but a shadow pale…
When Hope is placed without much light…
Beseech a child to show The Way.
O Ancient Ones, beseech us all to listen…
To seek the light, not darkness.”
At Pringsengnacht; Two Sixty Three in
Amsterdam…
There — dwells the Secret Annex.
It is a shrine to honor peace; the scourge of war forget.
That light will always shine to overcome darkness.
For images of war are thoughts…
Are thoughts of ugliness.
These thoughts of bitterness become transformed…
By healing teardrops of a child…
Who weeps with joy of hope.
Let’s honor Anne Frank’s words of hope.
And those of other children like her.
Who see the world as what it really ought to be…
Instead of how we often fashion it.
Let there dwell within our hearts a Secret Annex of Love!
That is the potent thought we seek to linger.
That is the thought we wish to bear fruit.
That is the childlike thought we cherish.
For of such thought is the Kingdom of Heaven.
And of such thoughts, to have all our children lead The Way.
Scheme | xxabc xcdex xxxff xcxxd ghixi hxjxk lmxnf xleox nkjfp Omjpq Ofxkx khxqx bxrxk rjgcf xxlxf xfxhq qadxk axxcg |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011100101 11110111 1110010 1111110 111010 11111101110 01111110 111101100 11101011 11110101 1101110 111101 11111011 110110100 110101 1101010111 0111011110 11101010 01101010 1101101100 0101111101 010111 111111 110101010101 1111110111 1111110111 0111101010101 1010111 111000111 100101010011 111111000101 0101010011 0111101010 011101 101011001010 11101001010 11101010101 010101010111 11010111 1100111011100110100 0101001101 010101001101 01001101 10001010 0110010111 11011 101011 10101001011 111101100101 01001011111 11011 111011 01001111 1010111 111101 11111111 110111 11110101 111010011 110111011 1101 1101011101 1110001 1110111 11110111 1111011 11110111 01011101 11010111110 1101110 1111010 10 110101 11011101011101 1111111010 11001111 111100 1111000101 1101101 111111 11011111 011101010 110111110111 0111110101 11101101010111 11010111110 110111111 11011110 11111010110 01111111010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,478 |
Words | 696 |
Sentences | 60 |
Stanzas | 18 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 90 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 146 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
About this poem
This 18-stanza confessional poem, “ The Thought That Lingers Part Eleven,” is Part Eleven 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), comprising altogether an anthology of metaphysical, philosophical, existential poetry that was composed in the year 2000 and now published on poetry.com .
Written on November 11, 2000
Submitted by karlcfolkes on April 21, 2024
Modified by karlcfolkes on August 23, 2024
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"The Thought That Lingers: Part Eleven" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Sep. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/185785/the-thought-that-lingers%3A-part-eleven>.
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