The Art Of The Lathe Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACD EFGHCIJKL MNCAO KPQRSTSUCS VCIWCXY ZXCSRA2XC XICB2C2X PXXXD2ASSXISC SD2CCSSLeonardo imagined the first one | A |
The next was a pole lathe with a drive cord | B |
illustrated in Plumier's L'art de tourner en perfection | A |
Then Ramsden Vauconson the great Maudslay | C |
his student Roberts Fox Clement Whitworth | D |
- | |
The long line of machinists to my left | E |
lean into their work ungloved hands adjusting the calipers | F |
tapping the bit lightly with their fingertips | G |
Each man withdraws into his house of work | H |
the rough cut shearing of iron by tempered steel | C |
blue black threads lifting like locks of hair | I |
then breaking over bevel and ridge | J |
Oil and water splash over the whitening bit hissing | K |
The lathe on night shift moonlight silvering the bed ways | L |
- | |
The old man I apprenticed with Roy Garcia | M |
in silk shirt khakis and Florsheims Cautious | N |
almost delicate explanations and slow | C |
shapely hand movements Craft by repetition | A |
Haig and Haig behind the tool chest | O |
- | |
In Diderot's Encyclopaedia an engraving | K |
of a small machine shop forge and bellows in back | P |
in the foreground a mandrel lathe turned by a boy | Q |
It is late afternoon and the copper light leaking in | R |
from the street side of the shop just catches | S |
his elbow calf shoe Taverns begin to crowd | T |
with workmen curling over their tankards | S |
still hearing in the rattle of carriages over cobblestone | U |
the steady tap of the treadle | C |
the gasp and heave of the bellows | S |
- | |
The boy leaves the shop cringing into the light | V |
and digs the grime from his fingernails blue | C |
from bruises Walking home he hears a clavier | I |
Couperin maybe a Bach toccata from a window overhead | W |
Music he thinks the beautiful | C |
Tavern doors open Voices Grab and hustle of the street | X |
Cart wheels The small room of his life The darkening sky | Y |
- | |
I listen to the clunk and slide of the milling machine | Z |
Maudsley's art of clarity and precision sculpture of poppet | X |
saddle jack screw pawl cone pulley | C |
the fit and mesh of gears tooth in groove like interlaced fingers | S |
I think of Mozart folding and unfolding his napkin | R |
as the notes sound in his head The new machinist sings Patsy Cline | A2 |
I Fall to Pieces Sparrows bicker overhead | X |
Screed of the grinder the bandsaw's groan and wail | C |
- | |
In his boredom the boy in Diderot | X |
studies again through the shop's open door | I |
the buttresses of Suger's cathedral | C |
and imagines the young Leonardo in his apprenticeship | B2 |
staring through the window at Brunelleschi's dome | C2 |
solid yet miraculous a resurrected body floating above the city | X |
- | |
Outside a cowbird cries flapping up from the pipe rack | P |
the ruffling of wings like a quilt flung over a bed | X |
Snow settles on the tops of cans black rings in a white field | X |
The stock cut clean gleams under lamplight | X |
After work I wade back through the silence of the shop | D2 |
the lathes shut down inert like enormous animals in hibernation | A |
red oil rags lying limp on the shoulders | S |
of machines dust motes still climbing shafts | S |
of dawn light hook and hoist chain lying desultory | X |
as an old drunk collapsed outside a bar | I |
barn sparrows pecking on the shores of oil puddles | S |
emptiness wholeness a cave a cathedral | C |
- | |
As morning light washes the walls of Florence | S |
the boy Leonardo mixes paints in Verrocchio's shop | D2 |
and watches the new apprentice muddle | C |
the simple task of the Madonna's shawl | C |
Leonardo whistles a canzone and imagines | S |
a lathe the spindle bit and treadle the gleam of brass | S |
B H Fairchild
(1)
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