Dialogue At Perko's Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD A E F EGC A DH F I A JK F LM A INO F O A PQN F RSACTL A J F G A CU F V A O F W A XYT F I A Z F A2A2RB2C2D2 A E2T F J A JF2G2H2LLI2J2K2S F L2CC2 A L2LLC2U F TJM2N2 A CO2P2Q2RC2CR2CLS2TT2 U2QG2RCCV2W2EV2V2V2C X2V2CELY2CV2Z2V2A3TM LB3V2C3UTV2Z2D3E3V2M C2F3G3H3I3J3K3A2LA2V 2V2V2 F TL3 A CV2SM3N3M3O3P3TQ3R3S 3T3U3V3U2R3W3V2X3V2F 2FA2V2 Y3CV2V2V2A3Z3A4SV2CV 2 F TCJF2V2 A F F B4C4D4F2M3V2V3E4F4V2 V3 A V2 F G4Look here Jack | A |
You don't act natural You have lost your laugh | B |
You haven't told me any stories You | C |
Just lie there half asleep What's on your mind | D |
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JACK | A |
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What time is it Where is my watch | E |
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FLORENCE | F |
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Your watch | E |
Under your pillow You don't think I'd take it | G |
Why Jack what talk for you | C |
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JACK | A |
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Well never mind | D |
Let's pack no ice | H |
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FLORENCE | F |
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What's that | I |
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JACK | A |
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No quarreling | J |
What is the time | K |
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FLORENCE | F |
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Look over towards my dresser | L |
My clock says half past eleven | M |
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JACK | A |
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Listen to that | I |
That hurdy gurdy's playing Holy Night | N |
And on this street | O |
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FLORENCE | F |
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And why not on this street | O |
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JACK | A |
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You may be right It may as well be played | P |
Where you live as in front of where I work | Q |
Some twenty stories up I think you're right | N |
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FLORENCE | F |
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Say Jack what is the matter Come be gay | R |
Tell me some stories Buy another bottle | S |
Just think you make a lot of money Jack | A |
You're young and prominent They all know you | C |
I hear your name all over town I see | T |
Your picture in the papers What's the matter | L |
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JACK | A |
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I've lost my job for one thing | J |
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FLORENCE | F |
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You don't mean it | G |
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JACK | A |
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They used me and then fired me same as you | C |
If you don't make the money out you go | U |
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FLORENCE | F |
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Yes out I go But there are other places | V |
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JACK | A |
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On further down the street | O |
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FLORENCE | F |
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Not yet a while | W |
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JACK | A |
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Not yet for me but still the question is | X |
Whether to fight it out for up or down | Y |
Or run from everything be free | T |
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FLORENCE | F |
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You can't do that | I |
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JACK | A |
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Why not | Z |
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FLORENCE | F |
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No more than I | A2 |
Oh well perhaps if a nice man came by | A2 |
To marry me then I could get away | R |
It happens all the time Last week in fact | B2 |
Christ Perko married Rachel who lived here | C2 |
He's rich as cream | D2 |
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JACK | A |
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What corresponds to marriage | E2 |
To take me from slavery | T |
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FLORENCE | F |
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Money is everything | J |
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JACK | A |
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Yes everything and nothing | J |
Christ Perko's rich Christ Perko runs this house | F2 |
The madam merely acts as figure head | G2 |
Keeps check upon the girls and on the wine | H2 |
She's just the editor and yet I'd rather | L |
Be editor than owner I was editor | L |
My Perko was the owner of a pulp mill | I2 |
Incorporate through some multi millionaires | J2 |
And all our lesser writers were the girls | K2 |
Like you and Rachel | S |
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FLORENCE | F |
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But you know before | L2 |
He married Rachel he was lover to | C |
The madam here | C2 |
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JACK | A |
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The stories tally for | L2 |
The pulp mill took my first assistant editor | L |
To wife by making him the editor | L |
And I was fired just as the madam here | C2 |
Lost out with Perko | U |
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FLORENCE | F |
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This is growing funny | T |
Ahem I'll ask you something | J |
As if I were a youth and you a girl | M2 |
How were you ruined first | N2 |
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JACK | A |
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The same as you | C |
You ran away from school It was romance | O2 |
You thought you loved this flashy travelling man | P2 |
And I I loved adventure loved the truth | Q2 |
I wanted to destroy the force called They | R |
There is no They we're all together here | C2 |
And everyone must live Christ Perko too | C |
The pulp mill the policeman magistrate | R2 |
The alderman the precinct captain too | C |
And you the girls myself the editor | L |
And all the lesser writers Here we are | S2 |
Thrown in one integrated lot You see | T |
There is no They except the terms the thought | T2 |
Which ramifies and vivifies the whole | U2 |
So I came to the city went to work | Q |
Reporting for a paper Having said | G2 |
There is no They I've freed myself to say | R |
What bitter things I choose For how they drive you | C |
And terrify you mock you ridicule you | C |
And call you cub and greenhorn send you round | V2 |
To courts and dirty places make you risk | W2 |
Your body and your life and make you watch | E |
The rules about your writing what's tabooed | V2 |
What names are to be cursed or to be praised | V2 |
What interests policies to be subserved | V2 |
And what to undermine So I went through | C |
Until I had a desk wrote editorials | X2 |
Now said I to myself I'm free at last | V2 |
But no my manager your madam mark you | C |
Kept eye on me for he was under watch | E |
Of some Christ Perko So my manager | L |
Blue penciled me when I touched certain subjects | Y2 |
But as he was a just man loved me too | C |
He gave me things to write where he could let | V2 |
My conscience have full scope as you might live | Z2 |
In this house where you saw the man you loved | V2 |
And no one else though living in this hell | A3 |
For I lived in a hell who saw around me | T |
Such lying hatred malice prostitution | M |
And when this offer came to be an editor | L |
Of a great magazine I seemed to feel | B3 |
My courage and my virtue given reward | V2 |
Now I should pass on poems and on stories | C3 |
Creations of free souls It was not so | U |
The poems and the stories one could see | T |
Were written to be sold to please a taste | V2 |
Placate a prejudice keep still alive | Z2 |
An era dying ready for the tomb | D3 |
Already smelling And that was not all | E3 |
Just as the madam here must make report | V2 |
To Perko so the magazine had to run | M |
To suit the pulp mill As the madam here | C2 |
Assistant to Christ Perko must keep friends | F3 |
With alderman policemen magistrates | G3 |
So I was just a wheel in a machine | H3 |
To keep it running with such larger wheels | I3 |
And by them run of policies and politics | J3 |
Of State and Nation Here was I locked in | K3 |
And given dope to keep me still lest I | A2 |
Cry out and wake the copper who's the copper | L |
For such as I was If he heard me cry | A2 |
How could he raid the magazine If he raided | V2 |
Where was the court to take me and the rest | V2 |
That's it where is the court | V2 |
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FLORENCE | F |
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It seems to me | T |
You're bad as I am | L3 |
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JACK | A |
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I am worse than you | C |
I poison minds with thoughts they take as good | V2 |
I drug an era make it foul or dull | S |
You only sicken bodies here and there | M3 |
But you know how it is You have remorse | N3 |
You fight it down hush it with sophistry | M3 |
You think about the world about your fellows | O3 |
You see that everyone is selling self | P3 |
Little or much somehow You feed your body | T |
Try to be hearty take things as they come | Q3 |
You take athletics try to keep your strength | R3 |
As you hear music laugh drink wine and smoke | S3 |
Are bathed and coifed to keep your beauty fresh | T3 |
And through it all the soul's and body's needs | U3 |
The pleasures interests passions of our life | V3 |
The cry that comes from somewhere Live O Soul | U2 |
The time is passing move and claim your strength | R3 |
Till you forget yourself forget the boy | W3 |
And man you were forget the dreams you had | V2 |
The creed you wished to live by yes what's worse | X3 |
See dreams you had grown tawdry see your creed | V2 |
Cracked through and crumbled like a falling house | F2 |
And then you say What is the difference | F |
As you might ask what virtue is and why | A2 |
Should woman keep it | V2 |
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I have reached this place | Y3 |
Save for one truth I hold to shall still hold to | C |
As long as I have breath The man who sees not | V2 |
Or cares not for the Truth that keeps the world | V2 |
From vast disintegration is a brute | V2 |
And marked for a brute's death that is his hell | A3 |
'Twas loyalty to this truth that made me lose | Z3 |
My place as editor For when they came | A4 |
And tried to make me pass an article | S |
To poison millions with I said I won't | V2 |
I won't by God I'll quit before I do | C |
And then they said You quit and so I quit | V2 |
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FLORENCE | F |
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And so you took to drink and came to me | T |
And that's the same as if I came to you | C |
And used you as an editor I am nothing | J |
But just a poor reporter in this house | F2 |
But now I quit | V2 |
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JACK | A |
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Where are you going Florence | F |
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FLORENCE | F |
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I'm going to a village or a farm | B4 |
Where I'll get up at six instead of twelve | C4 |
Where I'll wear calico instead of silk | D4 |
And where there'll be no furnace in the house | F2 |
And where the carpet which has kept me here | M3 |
And keeps you here as editor is not | V2 |
I'm going to economize my life | V3 |
By freeing it of systems which grow rich | E4 |
By using me and for the privilege | F4 |
Bestow these gaudy clothes and perfumed bed | V2 |
I hate you now because I hate my life | V3 |
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JACK | A |
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Wait Wait a minute | V2 |
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FLORENCE | F |
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Dinah call a cab | G4 |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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