Indignation Jones
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
You would not believe, would you
That I came from good Welsh stock?
That I was purer blooded than the white trash here?
And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders
And Virginians of Spoon River?
You would not believe that I had been to school
And read some books.
You saw me only as a run-down man,
With matted hair and beard
And ragged clothes.
Sometimes a man's life turns into a cancer
From being bruised and continually bruised,
And swells into a purplish mass,
Like growths on stalks of corn.
Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life
Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow,
With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter,
Whom you tormented and drove to death.
So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days
Of my life.
No more you hear my footsteps in the morning,
Resounding on the hollow sidewalk,
Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal
And a nickel's worth of bacon.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 53 sec read
- 128 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJEKLMNOEPQNRSTU |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 905 |
Words | 176 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 24 |
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