Monkey on a Swing
MONKEY ON A SWING
A chimp is not a monkey
not a monkey on a swing.
A monkey on a swing will rock himself
he'll try to hold himself
hold himself the way a mother would
hold himself the way he would be held
by the people on the other side
of all this two-way glass
if only their arms weren't already full
full of clipboards and curiosity.
A monkey on a swing,
he will eventually die.
It will be slow and it will hurt
and yes, oh yes, it is going to happen.
The swing will slow, the arms go limp.
The lips will curl then freeze.
but, a chimp is not a monkey
not a monkey on a swing.
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Submitted on October 22, 2015
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 9 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | a b A c c x x x x x b a x x x x x b A |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 561 |
Words | 121 |
Stanzas | 19 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
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"Monkey on a Swing" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/78766/monkey-on-a-swing>.
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