ThatCanadianGuy
June 4th, 2009, 01:17 AM
Here's another free verse I wrote for English class, followed by an analysis and hopefully an illustration (if I can get this to work :D).
The Mysterious Stranger
I must have told you a million times over
But you never listened.
The Mysterious Stranger is near,
And unspeakable fear
Comes with it.
It’s always smiling, like a grotesque marionette.
Its tentacles reach out to you; it hungers
For your flesh.
It feeds on silent screams
Held fast in your throat.
When you awake drenched in sweat
And tears.
The Mysterious Stranger is close.
It is a cosmic terror.
It is a disease that spreads.
It has lived, and always will.
Since before the petty construct of time
This Elder One has consumed
Countless worlds
This waking nightmare
Has become reality.
I can no longer contain it.
http://www.chaosium.com/images/rudolph_news.jpg
The Mysterious Stranger is a result of my recent interest in the themes expressed in lovecraftian horror, such as misanthropy, insanity, and the destruction of humanity at the predations of monstrous cosmic entities. These themes, along with poetic devices such as simile, metaphor, apostrophe, and descriptive imagery are used to convey the haunting message of this poem. The extreme helplessness expressed by the narrating character gives the poem a dark and hopeless tone, and the lack of rhyming structure and symmetry is used to showcase a very important quality in lovecraftian monsters; a formless, unfathomable creature whose appearance challenges the sanity of its witness.
This free verse introduces the narrator who berates an unseen listener, demonstrating both hyperbole and apostrophe. The creature described in the poem is only ever described as The Mysterious Stranger, or as “it” in a deliberate effort to assure that the monster is an anti-personification, the goal is to dehumanize the entity as much as possible. In the third and fourth stanza’s, references to grotesque marionettes and silent screams are examples of simile and paradox, respectively. The fifth stanza contains the descriptive imagery that gives certain qualities to The Mysterious Stranger, such as the metaphor of being a disease that spreads, while the claim that it is a cosmic terror is intended to be taken quite literally! The title The Mysterious Stranger was inspired by Mark Twain’s final, unfinished novel of the same name. However, instead of describing the Stranger as Twain does (he is revealed to be the angel, Satan) this description was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness, and his description of the monster known as “Shoggoth”.
The Mysterious Stranger
I must have told you a million times over
But you never listened.
The Mysterious Stranger is near,
And unspeakable fear
Comes with it.
It’s always smiling, like a grotesque marionette.
Its tentacles reach out to you; it hungers
For your flesh.
It feeds on silent screams
Held fast in your throat.
When you awake drenched in sweat
And tears.
The Mysterious Stranger is close.
It is a cosmic terror.
It is a disease that spreads.
It has lived, and always will.
Since before the petty construct of time
This Elder One has consumed
Countless worlds
This waking nightmare
Has become reality.
I can no longer contain it.
http://www.chaosium.com/images/rudolph_news.jpg
The Mysterious Stranger is a result of my recent interest in the themes expressed in lovecraftian horror, such as misanthropy, insanity, and the destruction of humanity at the predations of monstrous cosmic entities. These themes, along with poetic devices such as simile, metaphor, apostrophe, and descriptive imagery are used to convey the haunting message of this poem. The extreme helplessness expressed by the narrating character gives the poem a dark and hopeless tone, and the lack of rhyming structure and symmetry is used to showcase a very important quality in lovecraftian monsters; a formless, unfathomable creature whose appearance challenges the sanity of its witness.
This free verse introduces the narrator who berates an unseen listener, demonstrating both hyperbole and apostrophe. The creature described in the poem is only ever described as The Mysterious Stranger, or as “it” in a deliberate effort to assure that the monster is an anti-personification, the goal is to dehumanize the entity as much as possible. In the third and fourth stanza’s, references to grotesque marionettes and silent screams are examples of simile and paradox, respectively. The fifth stanza contains the descriptive imagery that gives certain qualities to The Mysterious Stranger, such as the metaphor of being a disease that spreads, while the claim that it is a cosmic terror is intended to be taken quite literally! The title The Mysterious Stranger was inspired by Mark Twain’s final, unfinished novel of the same name. However, instead of describing the Stranger as Twain does (he is revealed to be the angel, Satan) this description was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness, and his description of the monster known as “Shoggoth”.