Analysis of To Alexander Berkman
Lola Ridge 1873 – 1941
Can you see me, Sasha?
I can see you….
A tentacle of the vast dawn is resting on your face
that floats as though detached
in a sultry and greenish vapor.
I cannot reach my hands to you…
would not if I could,
though I know how warmly yours would close about them.
Why?
I do not know…
I have a sense of shame.
Your eyes hurt me… mysterious openings in the gray stone of your face
through which your spirit streams out taut as a flag
bearing strange symbols to the new dawn.
If I stay… projected, trembling against these bars filtering emaciated light… will your eyes… that bore their lonely way through mine… stop as at a friendly gate… grow warm… and luminous? … but I cannot stay… for the smell… I know… how the days pass… The prison squats with granite haunches on the young spring, battened under with its twisting green… and you… socket for every bolt piercing like a driven nail. Eyes stare you through the bars… eyes blank as a graveled yard… and the silence shuffles heavy dice of feet in iron corridors… until the day… that has soiled herself in this black hole to caress the pale mask of your face… withdraws the last wizened ray to wash in the infinite her discolored hands. Can you hear me, Sasha, in your surrounded darkness?
Scheme | XABXXAXXXXXBXX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (40%) |
Metre | 111110 1111 01001011110111 111101 001001010 11011111 11111 111110111011 1 1111 110111 111101001000011111 11110111101 101101011 1110101000111100010011111111011111101011101001110110111101101011101101111011101011011001101010111110111101100101010111010100010111101011110101111101011011100100001011111100101010 |
Characters | 1,300 |
Words | 232 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 1 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 65 |
Words per line (avg) | 15 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 484 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 115 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:09 min read
- 110 Views
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"To Alexander Berkman" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/25949/to-alexander-berkman>.
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