storm on the island

• "exploding comfortably" - oxymoron showing the ease and calm with which nature can be violent and destroy; also shows the speakers colloquial comfortability with the state of the island
• "spits like a tame cat turned savage" - simile showing that nature can always turn on you, it cannot be tamed or controlled
• "huge nothing we fear" - one could consider the Troubles a huge nothing (basically just Christian in-fighting), and yet the consequences were massive
• iambic pentameter, conversational
• single stanza to show the isolation of the island
• enjambment on lines 3-9 shows the speed the storm comes in, caesura at the end to show the painful anticipation of the next
• free verse to show the limitless uncontrollability of the storm
• semantic field of the violence of nature: "blast", "pummels", "bombarded"
• semantic field of war: "strafes", "salvo", "bombarded"
• the storm is an extended metaphor for the Troubles in Ireland (Stormont the Northern Irish Parliament, double entendre in the title)