Analysis of Flotsam
Lola Ridge 1873 – 1941
Crass rays streaming from the vestibules;
Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth;
High-flung signs
Blinking yellow phosphorescent eyes;
Girls in black
Circling monotonously
About the orange lights…
Nothing to guess at…
Save the darkness above
Crouching like a great cat.
In the dim-lit square,
Where dishevelled trees
Tustle with the wind—the wind like a scythe
Mowing their last leaves—
Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze—
Pale oval arcs
Like ailing virgins,
Each out of a halo circumscribed,
Pallidly staring…
Figures drift upon the benches
With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling—
Slovenly figures like untied parcels,
And papers wrapped about their knees
Huddled one to the other,
Cringing to the wind—
The sided wind,
Leaving no breach untried…
So many and all so still…
The fountain slobbering its stone basin
Is louder than They—
Flotsam of the five oceans
Here on this raft of the world.
This old man's head
Has found a woman's shoulder.
The wind juggles with her shawl
That flaps about them like a sail,
And splashes her red faded hair
Over the salt stubble of his chin.
A light foam is on his lips,
As though dreams surged in him
Breaking and ebbing away…
And the bare boughs shuffle above him
And the twigs rattle like dice…
She—diffused like a broken beetle—
Sprawls without grace,
Her face gray as asphalt,
Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges…
Shadows ply about her mouth—
Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree,
That dances above her its dance of dry bones.
II
A uniformed front,
Paunched;
A glance like a blow,
The swing of an arm,
Verved, vigorous;
Boot-heels clanking
In metallic rhythm;
The blows of a baton,
Quick, staccato…
—There is a rustling along the benches
As of dried leaves raked over…
And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand,
Tucking the displaced paper about his knees.
Colder…
And a frost under foot,
Acid, corroding,
Eating through worn bootsoles.
Drab forms blur into greenish vapor.
Through boughs like cross-bones,
Pale arcs flare and shiver
Like lilies in a wind.
High over Broadway
A far-flung sign
Glitters in indigo darkness
And spurts again rhythmically,
Spraying great drops
Red as a hemorrhage.
Scheme | AXAABCADXDEAXAAAAXFAFAAGHHXCXIAXXGCCEXAJIJACAXAXXAX XDCXAFXXXAGXAGXBAGAGHIXACAX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110101 1100111 111 101011 101 1001 010101 10111 101001 101011 00111 111 110101101 10111 110010101 1101 11010 11101001 110 10101010 111101011100 1001010110 01010111 1011010 10101 0101 101101 1100111 0101001110 11011 1010110 1111101 1111 1101010 0110101 11011101 01001101 100110111 0111111 111101 1001001 001110011 0011011 101101010 1011 01111 0110111010 110101 10111011 11001011111 1 0101 1 01101 01111 1100 1110 001010 011001 101 1101001010 1111110 0011101011 10001100111 10 001101 101 10111 111011010 11111 111010 110001 1101 0111 1001010 0101100 1011 110100 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 2,280 |
Words | 366 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 51, 27 |
Lines Amount | 78 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 863 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 182 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 1:50 min read
- 118 Views
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"Flotsam" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25900/flotsam>.
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