Analysis

Song of Powers by David Mason

Mine, said the stone,
mine is the hour.
I crush the scissors,
such is my power.
Stronger than wishes
my power, alone.

Mine, said the paper,
mine are the words
that smother the stone
with imagined birds,
reams of them, flown
from the mind of the shaper.

Mine, said the scissors
mine all the knives
gashing through paper's
ethereal lives;
nothing's so proper
as tattering wishes

As stone crushes scissors,
as paper snuffs stone
and scissors cut paper,
all end alone.
So heap up your paper
and scissor your wishes
and uproot the stone
from the top of the hill.
They all end alone
as you will, you will.

When I read this poem, one word I needed to know was ethereal which means extremely delicate. In context, ethereal helps to describe paper's lives. The literal interpretation of this poem is the speaker tell the story of stone, paper and scissors and describes their power. Then he warns about the danger they put themselves in by having this power. The idea of power flows throughout the poem and gives the poem it's title, Song of Powers. David Mason creates layers of meaning by using personification of the stone, paper, and scissors when they talk and he also uses all three as metaphors for power. The author also uses rhyme with using words like hour and power, paper and shaper, hill and will. Although there is a lot of end rhyme, it is not consistent, so the poem is free verse. The speaker of this poem is a man talking about the dangers of power. The speaker could be the author, but the poem doesn't have any specifics about the author. The shift occurs after the third stanza. I know this because the author stops telling the story of stone, paper, and scissors to sharing his own opinions and warnings about their power. This leads to the tone: warning. The speaker is warning about the outcome of too much power: loneliness. He also gives advice about what to do with this power, "... heap up your paper and scissor your wishes...". From the tone, I developed the theme of the poem which is power is powerful and dangerous. Although it is nice to have you could end up alone because of the selfish desire to be on top. The symbols of rock, paper, and scissors helped with the theme as well. The game of rock, paper, scissors is a very strict game; there are no if's, and's, or but's. If you apply the rules of the game to power, power becomes the most dangerous kind.