Analysis of Sinking Of The U.S.S. Nihilist (in which Albert Camus rolls over every stone but one and ends up sat
John Jessup Kennan 1953 (Pomona)
My brain is a bigger cancer
She tells me with a Cheshire grin
Than the tumor growing in it
So I have faith my brain will win
These chronic headaches come and go
But mostly they just come to stay
The kaleidoscope in this house of mirrors
Gets a little weirder every day
You say it's just a marketplace
Where all the futures come and go
Buy transient commodities
Brokers trade in human souls
Non-negotiable price fixing
Disguises our realities
And places pennies in the eyes
Of liabilities
Cryptic notes from outer edges
Post-midnight antemeridian
Text messages from window ledges
Postcards from oblivion
The thing about these memories
They show us how things might have been
I should have told her way back then
Your brain is never gonna win
If God is just some ancient fiction
What the hell have we got to lose?
There's no Kingdom Come to come to
Just strike the match and light the fuse
When this waste of time mercifully ends
And we bow to kiss the Big Vavoom
Nobody loses, nobody wins
Don't bother pondering your doom
'Cause all of life is meaningless
A swan dive into a great abyss
Stop prosecuting pedophiles
And fetch me one last stolen kiss
Cryptic notes from outer edges
Post-midnight antemeridian
Text messages from window ledges
Postcards from oblivion
Weary of the philosophized
Bell ringing over and over
Now the stone rolls over Sisyphus
And Pavlov's Rover won't roll over
Call us unconditional
Some of us mutts cannot be coached
Schrodinger's transitional cat
Eats evolutinary cockroach
The crown of thorns on Tarzan's Cheetah
Is worn delusionally
His human condition precedes his
Resemblance to a chimpanzee
So it's enough already with you
Metamorphic cockroach in our lunch
Can't figure out why he's on trial
But even Quasimodo has a hunch
Cryptic notes from outer edges
Post-midnight antemeridian
Text messages from window ledges
Postcards from oblivion
Cryptic notes from window ledges
Ultimatums from oblivion
© John Kennan 10-18-19
Scheme | abcbdefe xdgxxgxg HIJI gbxbiklk xmxmxnxn HIJI cafaoxxx xojxlpop HIJI ji i |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11101010 11110101 10101001 11111111 1101101 11011111 0010011110 1010101001 1111010 11010101 1100100 1010101 10100110 0101010 01010001 10100 10111010 1100100 110011010 110100 01011100 11111111 11110111 11110101 111111010 10111111 11101111 11010101 1111110001 01111011 11011 11010011 11111100 011010101 1100100 01111101 10111010 1100100 110011010 110100 10101 11010010 1011101 01101110 110100 11111011 101001 111 01111110 111 110010011 01010010 110101011 01010101 110111110 1100010101 10111010 1100100 110011010 110100 10111010 01010100 110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,894 |
Words | 329 |
Sentences | 2 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 4, 8, 8, 4, 8, 8, 4, 2, 1 |
Lines Amount | 63 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 146 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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"Sinking Of The U.S.S. Nihilist (in which Albert Camus rolls over every stone but one and ends up sat" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/100819/sinking-of-the-u.s.s.-nihilist-%28in-which-albert-camus-rolls-over-every-stone-but-one-and-ends-up-sat>.
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