"Coney Island Life" by James Weil is about how life is a carnival. Like how he compares his situations in life to a roller coaster going up and down, or him being on a marry-go-round trying to grabbing the brass ring till his moments in life were ending and he needed to take some risks before he passed.
"On roller coaster ups and downs", meaning his life shows the negatives and positives just like roller coasters that go from it's lows to highs.
The structure's pretty short and it emphasizes certain words towards the end. The length of the poem helped you understand the poem and also easier to make relationships towards it. The short, two worded phrases at the end, showed what showed what he was doing in life and emphasized it so it stood out. For example: "and ask" or " I have" shows how he interpreted his life and what makes him realize life is going past.
"I take my last ride on a planet carousel". This explains how the rides at his carnival might be his last. Then he asks himself, "how many more times around do I have". He's thinking of what has his life become and how he can live it to the fullest before he dies.
This poem talks about James Weil's hopes and dreams being compared to roller coasters and balloons because roller coasters has its ups and downs while balloons are like high hopes. So basically, this poem is relating to a carnival and life.
