Analysis of Amtrak 1
Changing scenery, always something new, from white frosty pea green (sea foam) shrubbery as former coral cousins—desert tundra replacing teeming seabed, to red, orange and yellows of brilliantly painted earth like the blood of Orpheus sprayed across the land dotted by juniper, cedar and pinone crowned on the edges by black and blue sleeping whales with iridescent white snowy dorsal fins peeking at the carnage.
The sun coats the land in a blanket of warmth, dressing the old guard yellowed weeds that wave ambiently in a gentler breeze than the chill predicts.
Sky blue knows many precedents but here the term might have been coined, on the wide-open plains of unfolding countless untold mythologies of the scrub.
Train tracks and stretches of highway crack the hard egg of a parched veneer and here and there flowers on black discs speed on past the goddesses, gods, fairies, nymphs and satyrs occupying their glass spaces as statues Michelangelo would proudly sculpt.
Everywhere, wires slice and snake on supporting crosses, the crosses bearing the pains of Mermerus to all of us, the sorrow of Orpheus, channeled energy of Zeus, crosses crisscrossing and zigzagging through our destinations.
An upturned laundry basket no longer holding anything but the empty promise of toting, a broken down retriever limping to that perfect dumping spot, landfills’ little cousins show with the sporadic discarded tire and rows of forty-year old refrigerators keeping only shadows cold now behind shut doors; and the vista changes again….
Mountainous terrain brings trees in to choke the view and threaten the sanctity of pleasant visions in heads of the entities in the glass.
Humongous rocks loom overhead, balancing precariously on the eroding slopes of future doom that run red in gorges cut into the rolling countryside.
Who are the myriad of spirits standing guard above on the hilltop?
What stories do they have to tell, what tales would shake our foundations, tall tales of the natives that once roamed free here?
And the scenery changes again…
Scheme | X X X X X A X X X X A |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10100110111101111100110101010100101011110010110010110111001010110110010011101011011011010110101101010 0110100101110011111110010110101 1111010011011111101101101010011101 110101110111010101011011111101001101011001110110101101 101010110101001010011111110101100101001110100100110010 111010110101010101011001010101011011011101011001001010011101101001010111011100101001 1000111011010100100110100110100001 0101110110001000100101110111101010101010 11010011010101101 1101111111111001011101011111 001001001 |
Characters | 2,062 |
Words | 352 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 11 |
Letters per line (avg) | 152 |
Words per line (avg) | 30 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 152 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
About this poem
The next three are performance pieces in a series. Depending on my mood, that's how each one goes.
Font size:
Written on February 18, 2022
Submitted by ScottMPotter on May 08, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:45 min read
- 0 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Amtrak 1" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/126220/amtrak-1>.
Discuss this Scott Michael Potter poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In