Analysis of Metaphorically speaking
Thabo Mqalu 2002 (Eastern Cape)
I have this tendency
I take ownership of stages
I have yet to stand on
Once my mother
My mother told me to escape reality
Create your own she said
So I dreamt foreign
Of itching palms
And deceased relatives
In dreams my grandmother associated
With great wealth
And ceremonies
That needed to be performed
But I saw nothing out of the ordinary
As my imagination
Presented itself as an itch
In hopes to grab my attention
Through setting my hands on fire
I felt myself missing a corpse
A body that once carried
My blood through its veins
So my mind
My mind logged on to forgotten memories
Reflections of my brother
In mirror that is 4 decades older him
To mould a statue
Paint a portrait
Create images
That made me feel closer to him
My father
Haploid
One pair of my chromosomes
Perhaps the only reason why today
I can say that I’m standing tall
With nerves of steel
Calling a spade a spade
In a stage that has never belonged to me
But has loved me without condition
As if to say
I may be the first stage you stand on
But I will definitely not be the last
Scheme | ABCDAX EXXXXFX AEXED XXXXFDG XXBGDXX HXXXA EHCX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111100 1110110 111111 1110 1101110110 011111 11110 1101 001100 011100100 111 0100 1101101 11110110100 110010 01001111 01111010 11011110 1111001 0101110 11111 111 11111010100 0101110 0101101101 1101 1010 01100 11111011 110 10 111110 0101010101 11111101 1111 100101 00111100111 111101010 1111 111011111 11110001101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,094 |
Words | 243 |
Sentences | 1 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 7, 5, 7, 7, 5, 4 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 121 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 29 |
About this poem
This poem is about my life and the challenges I’ve had to navigate through. It also touches on the loss of someone close to me and how that has and still is affecting me.
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Written on May 12, 2020
Submitted by 2437769 on June 30, 2022
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 2 Views
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"Metaphorically speaking" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/131541/metaphorically-speaking>.
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