Analysis of Zone
Guillaume Apollinaire 1880 (Rome) – 1918 (Paris)
At last you're tired of this elderly world
Shepherdess O Eiffel Tower this morning the bridges are bleating
You're fed up living with antiquity
Even the automobiles are antiques
Religion alone remains entirely new religion
Remains as simple as an airport hangar
In all Europe only you O Christianism are not old
The most modem European Pope Pius X it's you
The windows watch and shame has sealed
The confessionals against you this morning
Flyers catalogs hoardings sing aloud
Here's poetry this morning and for prose you're reading the tabloids
Disposable paperbacks filled with crimes and police
Biographies of great men a thousand various titles
I saw a pretty street this morning I forgot the name
New and cleanly it was the sun's clarion
Executives laborers exquisite stenographers
Criss-cross Monday through Saturday four times daily
Three times every morning sirens groan
At the lunch hour a rabid bell barks
The lettering on the walls and billboards
the doorplates and posters twitters parakeet-style
I love the swank of that street
Situated in Paris between the rue Aumont-Thieville and the avenue des Ternes
Here's the young street and you're still a baby
Dressed by your mother in blue and white only
You're very pious and with your oldest friend Rene Dalize
Nothing is more fun than Masses and Litanies
It's nine o'clock the gaslight is low you leave your bed
You pray all night in the school chapel
Meanwhile an eternal adorable amethyst depth
Christ's flamboyant halo spins forever
Behold the beautiful lily of worship
Behold the red-haired torch inextinguishable
Behold the pale son and scarlet of the dolorous Mother
Behold the tree forever tufted with prayer
Behold the double gallows honor and eternity
Behold the six-pointed star
Behold the God who dies on Friday and rises on Sunday
Behold the Christ who flies higher than aviators
He holds the world's record for altitude
Christ pupil of the eye
Twentieth pupil of the centuries knows its stuff
And bird-changed this century like Jesus climbs the sky
Devils in the abyss look up to watch
They say this century mimics Simon Magus in Judea
It takes a thief to catch a thief they cry
Angels flutter around the pretty trapeze act
Icarus Enoch Elijah Apollonius of Tyana
Hover as close to the airplane as they can
Sometimes they give way to other men hauling the Eucharist
Priests eternally climbing the elevating Host
The plane descends at last its wings unfolded
bursts into a million swallows
Full speed come the crows the owls and falcons
From Africa ibis storks flamingoes
The Roc-bird famous with writers and poets
Glides Adam's skull the original head in its talons
The horizon screams an eagle pouncing
And from America there comes a hummingbird
From China sinuous peehees
Who have only one wing and who fly in couples
And here's a dove immaculate spirit
Escorted by lyre-bird and shimmery peacock
Phoenix the pyre the self-resurrected
Obscures everything ardently briefly with ash
The sirens abandon their perilous channels
Each one singing more beautifully arrives
Everyone eagle Phoenix Chinese peehees
Eager to befriend a machine that flies
You are walking in Paris alone inside a crowd
Herds of buses bellow and come too close
Love-anguish clutches your throat
You must never again be loved
In the Dark Ages you would have entered a monastery
You are ashamed to overhear yourself praying
You laugh at yourself and the laughter crackles like hellfire
The sparks gild the ground and background of your life
Your life is a painting in a dark museum
And sometimes you examine it closely
You are walking in Paris the women are bloodsoaked
It was and I have no wish to remember it was the end of beauty
In Chartres from her entourage of flames Our Lady beamed at me
The blood of your Sacred Heart drenched me in Montmartre
I'm sick of hearing blissful promises
The love I feel is a venereal disease
And the image possessing you in your pain your insomnia
Vanishes and it is always near you
And now you are on the Riviera
Under lemon trees that never stop blooming
You are boating with friends
One is from Nice one is from Menton two from La Turbie
We are staring terrified at giant squid
At fish the symbols of Jesus swimming through seaweed
You are in the garden at an inn outside of Prague
You are completely happy a rose is on the table
And instead of getting on with your short-story
You watch the rosebug sleeping in the rose's heart
Scheme A B C DEF XGXBHXXI XEDCXXXJXX CCDK XLXFXJFXCXXXX MXBXNMXEXXXXXODXOBXDIXB PXIXDX HXXXCBXXXC AC CNXKNG NBXXPX BLCXF Poetic Form Metre 11110111001 11101011001011 1111010100 100100101 010010101001010 0111011110 011010111111 0110010110111 01010111 00100011110 101001101 1100110011110010 010010111001 010011101010010 11010111010101 10101101100 01001001001 111011001110 1110010101 1011001011 010010101 010101101 1101111 100010010111001011 1011011010 11110010110 11010011101011 101111100100 1101010111111 111100110 1101001001001 1010101010 01010010110 0101111 0101101010110 01010101011 01010101000100 0101101 01011111001011 0101111011000 110101110 110101 1001010100111 0111100110101 1000011111 111100101010010 1101110111 101001010011 1010010111 1011101111 011111101100100 101001001001 01011111010 10101010 1110101010 11001011 01110110010 11010010010110 0010111010 01010011010 110101 111011011010 0101010010 010111011 1001001010 01101001011 010010110010 1110110001 101010011 1010100111 1110010010101 1110100111 1101011 11100111 00110111100100 110111010110 1110100101011 0110101111 111010001010 0011010110 111001001011 110111110101101110 0101001111010111 011110111010 1111010100 011110010001 0010010101110100 100011111 011110010 10101110110 111011 1111111101111 1110101101 110101101011 1100101111111 11010100111010 001110111110 11011000101 1 Closest metre Iambic hexameter Characters 4,316 Words 758 Sentences 1 Stanzas 15 Stanza Lengths 1, 1, 1, 3, 8, 10, 4, 13, 23, 6, 10, 2, 6, 6, 5 Lines Amount 99 Letters per line (avg) 37 Words per line (avg) 8 Letters per stanza (avg) 242 Words per stanza (avg) 51 Font size:Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 3:52 min read
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"Zone" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/16290/zone>.
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Quiz
Are you a poetry master?
»Do not go gentle into that good _______. Rage, rage against the dying of the light
A
fire
B
day
C
end
D
night
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