Analysis of The Raven Has Fled



The ribbon is cut
 The die is cast
 The cement is dry
 Yet nothing lasts
 The brazen rewarded
 The hero a fool
 All reason outdated
 New fury the tool”

A journey presented
Your ship to go far
With doldrums eclipsed
By the light of new stars
The lands will seem foreign
The people most strange
But they’ll smile as you pass
And call you by name
You run, and you run,
And you run from it all
With no chart to guide you
The albatross calls
And then sweet intention
Returns from respite
Rephrasing the unmentioned
Where maybe you might
In fear of the tonic
All healing disdained
Right, left-side disjointed
The cork from the drain
The covers pull back
Your bones are now bare
The tiller is slack
And there’s nobody there
So you take to the helm
Hands firmly in place
And you care not a whit
If it’s all empty space
As a raven is perched
On the yardarm so high
A land bird that lurches
Cawing all truth a lie
And you wonder then maybe
Have you wandered too far
As you ladle the future
From a long empty jar
The wind starts to move
A gift from the moon
What’s whole has been halved
And the sun almost noon
The rigging is creaking
The mast ever tall
The wind has died down
With no new ports of call
The feeling still burns
In the fire within
To find that one thing
That unfound—to you sings
The ocean is flat
The seas remain calm
The seasons repeat
From reflection embalmed
The night sky is clearest
The darkest the days
The winds have escaped you
Adrift you now stay
But then just a wisp
Of a breeze on your cheek
Portends of a magic
And the vision you seek
It strengthens and gushes
Throughout all the night
As the red sky last evening
Had hinted it might
As the headsails go up
The big linen comes down
And you climb up the mast
Stepping over a frown
The creak of the lapstrake
Splashes over the bow
The present in sight
Incarnate, right now
You look down on a lifetime
In this moment of joy
As the smell of the brine
Covers anything coy
And an Island approaches
From the mist up ahead
As the stillness reproaches
And retreats to its bed
The wonder returns
All speculation begins
Of the magic you’ll find
In this newness again
At the top of a mountain
Strange trees then appear
In a shape that’s uncertain
Neither familiar nor clear
The closer you get
The more they seem to move
As their shapes become giant
And your hopes then behoove
Now anchored offshore
With the dinghy in place
You can see them more clearly
Each shape and each face
Like monolithic Gods
They reign high on the hill
Looking down on who enter
With a warning that’s shrill
But where are the people
The Island is bare
Just giant stone carvings
That linger and stare
As you land on the beach
The ground starts to shake
And from deep in your heart
The primordial aches
The mountain then trembles
All paths become closed
With the thunder a warning
Any trespasser knows
As you run to the dinghy
Its been stolen and gone
And your ship is now missing
In its place just a song
Calling out in those words
That you already know…

“A price not paid dearly
     is only for show”

You turn back to the mountain
And in an explosion of light
You’re lifted up to the heavens
Spun around in a fright
Then shooting straight downward
Toward the mountain below
With force you are planted
Along monument row
And now that you’ve joined them
All questions abide
The distance and separation
In heaven collide…

“Can I leave, am I destined
  to be left here entombed ?”

And in language you recognize
You hear back so soon
From those pillars immortal
Voices start to be heard
Your welcome now total
Reborn in their words

“You can leave if you want to
  the choice is now yours
  but this mountain goes
  with you
  all places defer
  you’ve reached
  through the mystery
  you’ve passed your own test
  the tonic’s within you,
   —the raven has fled”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2013)


Scheme Text too long
Poetic Form
Metre 01011 0111 00111 1101 010010 01001 11010 11001 010010 11111 11001 101111 011110 01011 111111 01111 11011 011111 111111 0101 011010 01110 10010 11011 011010 11001 111010 01101 01011 11111 01011 0111 111101 11001 011101 111101 101011 10111 011110 11101 0110110 111011 1110010 101101 01111 01101 01111 00111 010110 01101 01111 111111 01011 001001 11111 11111 01011 01011 01001 101001 011110 01001 011011 01111 11101 101111 011010 001011 110010 01101 1011110 11011 10111 011011 011101 101001 01101 101001 01001 01011 111101 011011 101101 10101 0110010 101101 10101 001111 01001 101001 101011 011001 1011010 11101 0011010 1001011 01011 011111 1110110 011101 11011 101001 1111110 11011 10101 111101 1011110 101011 111010 01011 110110 11001 111101 01111 011011 001001 01011 11011 1010010 1011 1111010 111001 0111110 011101 101011 110101 011110 11011 1111010 00101011 11011010 101001 110110 0101001 111110 011001 011111 11001 0100010 01001 1111110 111101 0010110 11111 1110010 101111 110110 11011 1111111 01111 11101 11 11001 11 10100 11111 010011 01011 0100101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 3,719
Words 717
Sentences 2
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 8, 118, 2, 12, 2, 6, 10, 1
Lines Amount 159
Letters per line (avg) 19
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 380
Words per stanza (avg) 90
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Submitted by KurtPhilipBehm on October 04, 2018

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:35 min read
14

Kurt Philip Behm

Longtime writer with twelve books in publication. Three of them Poetry. : The Death Of The Playground : The Sword Of Ichiban : Searching For Crazy Horse : Darkening Sun : An Anthology Of Perception-Vol's 1 & 2 : After Midnight : Sammy And Bumpers : The Fall City Mandate : Revenge Along The War Trail : Death from The Sky more…

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