The Starvation of Flies is a solemn poetic form intended to teach a moral lesson concerning the concept of death, originating in The Justice of Potatoes. The form guides poets during improvised performances. The poem is a single tercet. Use of metaphor is characteristic of the form. A form of parallelism is common throughout the poem, in that certain lines use the same placement of allusions. Each line has ten syllables. Every line of the poem has a medial caesura. The rhyme scheme of the poem is ABB. The rhymes at the end of the first and third lines don't need to match perfectly.