The Feast Of Stephen Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJIKLMN A OPQRSQTORQUVRW A IXYOORRORRRZQQ Y OOROA2RA2ORRRQB2B2I | A |
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The coltish horseplay of the locker room | B |
Moist with the steam of the tiled shower stalls | C |
With shameless blends of civet musk and sweat | D |
Loud with the cap gun snapping of wet towels | E |
Under the steel ribbed cages of bare bulbs | F |
In some such setting of thick basement pipes | G |
And janitorial realities | H |
Boys for the first time frankly eye each other | I |
Inspect each others bodies at close range | J |
And what they see is not so much another | I |
As a strange possible version of themselves | K |
And all the sparring dance adrenal life | L |
Tense jubilant nimbleness is but a vague | M |
Busy unfocused ballet of self love | N |
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II | A |
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If the heart has its reasons perhaps the body | O |
Has its own lumbering sort of carnal spirit | P |
Felt in the tingling bruises of collision | Q |
And known to captains as esprit de corps | R |
What is this brisk fraternity of timing | S |
Pivot and lobbing arc or indirection | Q |
Mens sana in men s sauna in the flush | T |
Of health and toilets private and corporal glee | O |
These fleet caroms plies and genuflections | R |
Before the salmon leap the leaping fountain | Q |
All sheathed in glistening light flexed and alert | U |
From the vast echo chamber of the gym | V |
Among the stumbled shouts and shrill of whistles | R |
The bounced basketball sound of a leather whip | W |
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III | A |
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Think of those barren places where men gather | I |
To act in the terrible name of rectitude | X |
Of acned shame punk s pride muscle or turf | Y |
The bully s thin superiority | O |
Think of the Sturm Abteilungs Kommandant | O |
Who loves Beethoven and collects Degas | R |
Or the blond boys in jeans whose narrowed eyes | R |
Are focussed by some hard and smothered lust | O |
Who lounge in a studied mimicry of ease | R |
Flick their live butts into the standing weeds | R |
And comb their hair in the mirror of cracked windows | R |
Of an abandoned warehouse where they keep | Z |
In darkened readiness for their occasion | Q |
The rope the chains handcuffs and gasoline | Q |
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IV | Y |
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Out in the rippled heat of a neighbor s field | O |
In the kilowatts of noon they ve got one cornered | O |
The bugs are jumping and the burly youths | R |
Strip to the waist for the hot work ahead | O |
They go to arm themselves at the dry stone wall | A2 |
Having flung down their wet and salty garments | R |
At the feet of a young man whose name is Saul | A2 |
He watches sharply these superbly tanned | O |
Figures with a swimmer s chest and shoulders | R |
A miler s thighs with their self conscious grace | R |
And in between their sleek converging bodies | R |
Brilliantly oiled and burnished by the sun | Q |
He catches a brief glimpse of bloodied hair | B2 |
And hears an unintelligible prayer | B2 |
Anthony Evan Hecht
(1)
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