Analysis of Sober-itis
Sunday, August 29th, 1966,
90 Fahrenheit.
Just after midnight.
No wind.
The Marquee.
An average lead guitarist
from a London based ballroom orchestra,
occupational bun filler,
indignantly beats-up –whilst downing
a whole bottle of Four Roses–
a frowning young man,
who, for many years,
carries his name
as a taut blown flag.
The 44-year-old guitarist
from the average orchestra
reproaches
his colored craft-brother
that he's way too long
way too much
playing too many notes
in way too little time.
Not much later
Jimmy Hendrix
–with a dry gasp–
sets his favorite guitar
on fire.
The beat orchestra itself
unravels
its entire existence
in three performances.
One at the low budget wedding
of two transsexual psychiatrists
where the cold onion soup
is served
in china thimbles.
One at an after party
following the opening
of a night shop
selling tailor made
scuba diving equipment
for mongrel dwarfs
and one at a reunion concert
in favor of
the acquisition
of billiard chalks
for a private club
whose clientele
mainly consists
of loudly
snoring wild boars.
Surprisingly
the average guitarist
is still alive.
He is
surrounded by the best of care
in a jail
in East End.
To pimps and killers
he's telling
ad nauseam
how he showed Hendrix
the way
on his guitar.
If we can believe
what the doctors say
the man is suffering from
a cancerous throat,
yellow jaundice,
heel spurs,
tuberculosis,
fungal toes,
bedsores,
dipsomania,
masturbation fixation,
tunnel crush,
involvement delusions,
anemia,
anal balloons,
f*ck-urge
IQ-transformation,
eyelash loss,
genouflexious addiction,
c*nt slurps,
splinted erection,
synchronous exhalations,
penetration panic,
and
sober-itis.
Scheme | XAAXB CDEFGHXXX CDGEXXXX EIXJE XXXX FXXXG BFXXXX XXKXXXXBG BCX GXXX LFXIMJ XMXXXLXXGHKXXDXXKXKGKGXXG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011 10 1101 11 001 1100110 101011100 00100110 010011110 01101110 01011 11101 1011 10111 01110 10100100 1 110110 11111 111 101101 011101 1110 1010 1011 1110001 110 0110001 010 1010010 010100 11011010 1101000100 101101 11 0101 1111010 1000100 1011 10101 1010010 111 011001010 0101 0010 1101 10101 101 1001 110 1011 0100 010010 1101 11 01010111 001 011 11010 110 11 11110 01 1101 11101 10101 0111001 01001 1010 11 0010 101 1 1 010010 101 010010 0100 1001 111 1010 11 1010 111 1010 11 01010 0 101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,581 |
Words | 262 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 9, 8, 5, 4, 5, 6, 9, 3, 4, 6, 25 |
Lines Amount | 89 |
Letters per line (avg) | 15 |
Words per line (avg) | 3 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 112 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
About this poem
Translation by Ludy Bührs at the author's request of a poem in Dutch by Coenraed de Waele
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"Sober-itis" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/104750/sober-itis>.
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