AUTO WRECK

1. - Karl Shapiro AUTO WRECK MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

2. Theme • Describing the scene of an accident in detail, together with the poet’s reaction. • The poet debates the issue of life and death. MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

3. The speaker • The speaker is one of the bystanders of the accident scene. • He narrates the incident in the first person (note the use of “we”) MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

4. Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating • And down the dark one ruby flare • Pulsing out red light like an artery, • The ambulance at top speed floating down • Past beacons and illuminated clocks • Wings in a heavy curve, dips down, • And brakes speed, entering the crowd. • The doors leap open, emptying light; • Stretchers are laid out, the mangled lifted • And stowed into the little hospital. MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

5. Then the bell, breaking the hush, tolls once, • And the ambulance with its terrible cargo • Rocking, slightly rocking, moves away, • As the doors, an afterthought, are closed. • We are deranged, walking among the cops • Who sweep glass and are large and composed. • One is still making notes under the light. • One with a bucket douches ponds of blood • Into the street and gutter. • One hangs lanterns on the wrecks that cling, • Empty husks of locusts, to iron poles. MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

6. Our throats were tight as tourniquets, • Our feet were bound with splints, but now, • Like convalescents intimate and gauche, • We speak through sickly smiles and warn • With the stubborn saw of common sense, • The grim joke and the banal resolution. • The traffic moves around with care, • But we remain, touching a wound • That opens to our richest horror. MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

7. Already old, the question, Who shall die? • Becomes unspoken, Who is innocent? • For death in war is done by hands; • Suicide has cause and stillbirth, logic; • And cancer, simple as a flower, blooms. • But this invites the occult mind, • Cancels our physics with a sneer, • And spatters all we knew of dénouement • Across the expedient and wicked stones. MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

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9. Read the poem and complete the table you are given. MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

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17. Useful but not always fair or right MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH

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22. Parallelism Figure of balance identified by a similarity in the syntactical structure of a set of words in successive phrases, clauses, sentences; successive words, phrases, clauses with the same or very similar grammatical structure. This figure often occurs public address with others such as antithesis, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." MADE BY RONEL MYBURGH