Analysis of THE STORY OF HELL HOUSE
I never thought we’d get away alive
From Hell House and all its horrors,
After eight years under a monster’s thumb
Our lives knew only mounting sorrows.
In ‘68 a Western Gate set upon us
To sweep the sanity from our lives,
Forcing us to Hell House in Williamstown
Where for more’n eight years we did reside.
An evil place down by the sea
Hannan Street was that awful place,
A place where only sorrow flourished
Where ‘gainst our will we had to stay.
Under Muggsly’s insane iron thumb
We children too afraid to pray,
And too cowered down to try to leave
This empty, soulless, evil place.
A brutal tyrant gave us orders
And in terror we’d blindly obey,
The mandates of a blackened soul
So deeply were we all afraid.
The skies were gloomy, ever gray
In Williamstown, the sun never shines,
It’s perpetually in a twilight state
Or so it seemed in those evil times.
No sunshine fell upon our lives
In those dark and dirty days,
When Muggsly had us in his grip
And all of us were naught but slaves.
Around the livingroom we would seek
Finding alcohol in bottles or cans,
Hidden from our youthful eyes
By an evil, bloated, monstrous man.
A secret drinker; a blatant fiend
Muggsly kept us terrorised,
Denise, Cheryl, John, and Mum
Their will to flee was paralysed.
He had us carrying bricks and tools
Mixing mortar from sand and cement,
From when we were only little ones
Until our backs were scarred and bent.
Pushing barrows full of bricks
Digging ditches, then laying mortar,
From seven AM to nearly midnight
Till our flesh was black as tar.
John and I would go out walking
Just after lunch on some Sundays,
Then we would return long after dinner
To have to hear Muggsly’s endless raves.
Till the night in 1976
When Denise, John, and I made a break,
Almost carrying Mum out with us
As we made the great escape.
Through the streets down to Yarraville
We fled the horror with our belongs,
Hoping all the while Muggsly would stay out
Until our caravan was safely gone.
In Regent Street, we stayed to live
Escaped the horrors of Hell House,
Still afraid Muggsly might find us
For two years we still were cowered.
But in time our memories faded
And the horrors seemed lesser then,
And we hoped we would never see
The day we’d meet Muggsly again.
THE END
© Copyright 2021, Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Scheme | ABCX DEXF GHXI CIXH BIJX IXXX EKXL XXXX XFCF XMXM XNXX XKNL XXDX JXXX AXDF XOGO XXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101110101 11101110 1011100101 1011101010 001011011 1101001101 101111010 1110111101 11011101 10111101 011101010 111011111 10101101 11010111 01111111 11010101 010101110 001011001 0110101 11001101 01010101 01001101 1010000011 111101101 11101101 0110101 1111011 01110111 01010111 101001011 10110101 111010101 010100101 1111 0110101 111111 111100101 101011001 111010101 011010101 1010111 101011010 11011101 11011111 10111110 1101111 1110111010 11111101 1010 101101101 11001111 1110101 101111 1101011001 101011111 0110101101 01011111 01010111 1011111 1111101 1011010010 00101101 01111101 0111101 01 101010 100100010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,261 |
Words | 419 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 17 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3 |
Lines Amount | 67 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 108 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
About this poem
One of four linked poems about my father's madness. The other three are: 20 Years in Hell, The Great Escape, and Witchery. Witchery is the best, but hardest to understand of the four.
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Written on April 26, 2009
Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on June 30, 2021
Modified on March 27, 2023
- 2:05 min read
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"THE STORY OF HELL HOUSE" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/103850/the-story-of-hell-house>.
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