Analysis of Nurse Mary
Yair Michaeli 1998 (Israel)
I checked into the lobby of her one room apartment,
darkened corridor filled with paintings of Jesus.
The fountain throbbed in the hall of this hotel,
shuttered windows,
subtle innuendos,
three knocks.
The night was hot and black,
clothes stuck to our shirts.
The story is about summer and you,
and her dark little island of a room,
and all of her crooked roads,
that had their footprints in my odes.
She was born under the star of Venus, three stars above me.
Her light blue eyes, filled with humbleness, softly saddened.
Her painter's eyes, mercury mouth at the biblical times.
Hair that was colored like a wine dark sea would fall down on her breast.
On lips that looked like bare roses, blushing themselves for me,
filled with blood, eaten with desire.
I was a wounded soldier, long afloat on a ship less sea.
Deserted and displaced from the war.
A war between the black and white,
A war between the man and the woman.
Utopian infant, Eutopian mother.
Born into this life, thrown into this world.
We entered the darkened room, and purposely didn’t turn on the lights.
She through her house keys and bag on her bed, lit a cigarette.
Offered me one, however he took some of my own.
Looking into her eyes through the smoke, where the moonlight floats.
Lit lamp that was hanging from a distant boat.
Now I saw, there was a painting by Arnold Bocklin hanging on the wall.
spoken word:
A small rowing boat is just arriving at a water gate and seawall on shore.
An oarsman maneuvers the boat from the stern. In the boat, facing the gate, is a standing figure clad entirely in white, a lone loon dives upon the water. Just behind him, there is a festooned object commonly interpreted as a coffin. The tiny islet is dominated by a dense grove of tall, dark cypress and willow trees. The Mephistopheles is just beneath him. As siren grabs him from the of the edge of the boat, underwater.
And she wraps up my tired face in her hair
And she hands me the apple core,
Two birds in a cage, drinking lovers wine and eating bread.
I'll stop in the middle and skip things between me and her. (It comes to us all, soft as a pillow)
The oarsmen has gone
And the loons have flown for cover.
This is the Death of a Lover.
Scheme | XXXAAX XXXXBB CXXXCD CEXXDX XXXXXX XED XEX X XDD |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010101011010 101001110110 01010011101 1010 100010 11 011101 111101 0101011001 0011010101 0110101 1111011 111100111011011 01111111010 01011001101001 1111010111111101 11111110100111 111101010 110101010110111 010001101 01010101 0101010010 010010110 1011110111 1100101010011101 11011011011001 101110111111 1001011011011 11111010101 11111010110110101 101 0110111010101010111 110010011010011001101010101000101110101010111101101000100101001010110010111111001101110111101110101101100 01111101001 01110101 11001101010101 110010011011001111111010 0111 00111110 11011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 2,167 |
Words | 408 |
Sentences | 31 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 3, 3, 1, 3 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 43 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 192 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted by YairMichaeli on February 04, 2021
Modified by YairMichaeli on February 04, 2021
- 2:03 min read
- 9 Views
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"Nurse Mary" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/61527/nurse-mary>.
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