Totem Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHHIBJKLMNOPCQ BRSTUVISVWXYMZSA2B2C 2LD2SE2F2SG2A2H2I2SB J2K2L2S| All Souls' over the roast seeds eaten I set | A |
| on a backporch post our sculpted pumpkin | B |
| under the weather warm still for November | C |
| Night and day it gapes in at us | D |
| through the kitchen window going soft | E |
| in the head Sleepwalker slow a black rash of ants | F |
| harrows this hollow globe munching | G |
| the pale peach flesh sucking its seasoned | H |
| last juices dry In a week when the ants and | H |
| humming flies are done only a hard remorseless light | I |
| drills and tenants it through and through Within | B |
| it turns mould black in patches stays | J |
| days like this while the weather takes it | K |
| in its shifty arms wide eye spaces shine | L |
| the disapproving mouth holds firm Another week | M |
| a sad leap forward sunk to one side | N |
| so an eye socket's almost blocked it becomes | O |
| a monster of its former self Human it would have | P |
| rotted beyond unhappiness and horror | C |
| to some unspeakable subject state its nose | Q |
| no more than a vertical hole the thin | B |
| bridge of amber between nose and mouth | R |
| in ruins The other socket opens | S |
| wider than ever disbelief | T |
| It's all downhill | U |
| from here knuckles of sun peremptory | V |
| steady fingers of frost strain all day and night | I |
| cracking the rind kneading the knotted fibres | S |
| free The crown with its top knot mockery | V |
| of stalk caves in the skull buckles the whole | W |
| sad head drips tallowy tears the end | X |
| is in sight In a day or two it topples on itself | Y |
| like ruined thatch pus white drool spidering | M |
| from the corner of the mouth worming its way | Z |
| down the body post All dignity to the winds | S |
| it bows its bogeyman face of dread | A2 |
| to the inevitable | B2 |
| And now November almost out | C2 |
| it is in the bright unseasonable sunshine | L |
| a simmer of pulp a slow bake amber shell speckled | D2 |
| chalk grey with lichen Light strikes and strikes | S |
| its burst surfaces it sags stays at the end of | E2 |
| its brief tether a helmet of dark circles death caul | F2 |
| Here is the last umbilical gasp everybody's | S |
| nightmare parent the pitiless system | G2 |
| rubbing our noses in it But pity poor lantern head | A2 |
| with his lights out glob by greasy glob | H2 |
| going back where he came from as each seed shaped | I2 |
| dropp falls free it catches and clutches | S |
| for one split second the light When the pumpkin | B |
| lapses to our common ground at last where | J2 |
| a swaddle of snow will fold it in no time | K2 |
| from sight I try to take in the empty space it's left | L2 |
| on top of the wooden post it is that empty space | S |
Eamon Grennan
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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