Pierrot Objects
They have made me an airy apologyFor the crude insistence of their flesh!They have made me twist my tongueInto fickle nonchalance!With a languid impudenceI have tarried underneath the moon,While the haggard reticenceOf their lives forgot itself within me!Well, I am rebellingAt the men who make meTheir grimacing marionnette!Let them find another dancing-teacherFor their dull, unruffled fears.I am off to tear my black and whiteInto shreds, within a valleyWhere nakedness and colours do not needAn artificial night to make them brave!
Words in this poem
- insistence n.
- The quality of insisting, or being urgent or pressing; the act of dwelling upon as of special importance; persistence; urgency.
- nonchalance n.
- Indifference; carelessness; coolness. [F. See Nonchalant.]
- haggard a.
- Wild or intractable; disposed to break away from duty; untamed; as, a haggard or refractory hawk. Shak [F. hagard; of German origin, and prop. meaning, of the hegde or woods, wild, untamed. See Hedge, 1st Haw, and -ard.]
- reticence n.
- The quality or state of being reticent, or keeping silence; the state of holding one's tonque; refraining to speak of that which is suggested; uncommunicativeness. [L. reticentia: cf. F. réticence.]
- unruffled a.
- Not ruffled or agitated; smooth; calm; tranquil; quiet. [Pref. un- not + ruffled.]
- nakedness n.
- The condition of being naked.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Pierrot Objects is in the public domain. This text is taken from Advice: A Book of Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #60252; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Maxwell Bodenheim, Pierrot Objects, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/pierrot-objects.html, id L23382.
Form and metre
Pierrot Objects is 17 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ---AA-AB-B------- apology · flesh · tongue · nonchalanceA · impudenceA · moon · reticenceA · meB · rebelling · meB · marionnette · teacher · fears · white · valley · need · brave
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| They have made me an airy apology | 10 | ·····/˘˘/˘ |
| For the crude insistence of their flesh! | 9 | ···˘/˘··· |
| They have made me twist my tongue | 7 | ······· |
| Into fickle nonchalance! | 7 | ··/˘/˘/ |
| With a languid impudence | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| I have tarried underneath the moon, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| While the haggard reticence | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| Of their lives forgot itself within me! | 10 | ···˘/˘/··· |
| Well, I am rebelling | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| At the men who make me | 6 | ······ |
| Their grimacing marionnette! | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| Let them find another dancing-teacher | 10 | ···˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| For their dull, unruffled fears. | 8 | ···˘/˘˘· |
| I am off to tear my black and white | 9 | ········· |
| Into shreds, within a valley | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Where nakedness and colours do not need | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘··· |
| An artificial night to make them brave! | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.