Where the Sidewalk Ends Analysis

(8)

 Loading ...

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

The poem begins with the speaker, who will henceforth be refered to as Jack, giving directions to an old lady. The speaker utilizes a variety of confusing diction and metaphysical conceit to relay the locale the old lady desires. This overload of knowledge confuses the old lady, and at the end of the first line her head explodes.

Jack, obsessed with his irrelevant monologue, continues to talk to the corpse, even as it is devoured by a horde of forest creatures.

By the end of the third line, “And there the grass grows soft and white,” it becomes apparent that Jack is indeed referring to another planet in the 4th dimension. He then reveals that the only way to reach this land is to use the “moon-bird.” The moon-bird, according to greek mythology, is phenylcyclohexylpiperidine, known more conventionally as PCP. The last line of the first stanza reveals that the PCP is laced with high levels of acid. Not LSD acid, but corborane superacid, which is over a million times stronger than sulfuric acid.

So Jack, in essence, is fucked.

The second stanze begins with Jack narrating from the 4th dimension, his body having ceased to exist. However, his soul is now trapped in an interdimensional flux, akin to the nexus in Star Trek Generations, minus the cool special effects and William Shatner.

The tone of this stanza is dark. No, really, the word dark is said, like, 2 times. Ok, I lied. It’s only said once. But still. That’s fucking dark.

The final stanze makes a vague attempt at adding some deeper meaning to the poem, regarding conformity and peer pressure, blind obediance and destiny. But it doesn’t.

After the last line of the poem (advanced analysis skills are needed to read this far), Jack meets God. They become BFFL and play Left 4 Dead in order to prepare for the impending zombie apocolypse.

In the concluding line of the poem, Jack goes and takes a fourth-dimensional shit.