Not to turn this into another house full of chintz, but I'mma fuck this poem on the floor.
There are two readings of the poem's meter that I immediately identify, the first is how I'd want to read it, and the second is how a normal person would probably read it, but both make the same point.
In my interpretation (left), the first line is four wholely irregular feet: an iamb into a dibrach into two trochees; The second line is two trouches into a hanging stressed syllable; And the third line is three iambs.
In the more normal interpretation(right), the first line and second line are six trochees all together plus that hanging syllable in 'knowing' which transitions the poem to iambic trimeter.
And look at the interesting result of that laid bare:
In English poetry there's a tradition, all other things being equal, that iambs are considered the sophisticated foot with trochees often being contrasted as the vulgar or common foot.
The vulgar in specificity "hot dog water" is put in trochee, while the respectably vague "the holy stuff" is afforded iambs. Without the poet having thought of the stress things the pattern actively, this incapulation of the English poetic tradition is astounding. Especially when you consider the
Chiasmus is a figure of rhetorical construction, in which two pairs of ideas are laid across each other, A B B A. It's one of the more popular figures of rhetoric and if you're looking for it you'll see it everywhere.
In the most literal sense, it's about repetition; but, you can apply it more liberally to ideas, thoughts, or in this case, parts of speech:
The nouns and verb pairs in the first and third lines crossover each other. They are in chiasmus. Structurally, the inversion makes the poem feel more solid, while still furthering emphasizing the contrast between the idea of hot dog water and the holy stuff.
Opening with a command and closing with a result.
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