Venice, November, 1966 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAAB CDEFA GAHIABA AAAAJ AKDLAMAAAAA| With his head full of Shakespearean tempests | A |
| and old notions of poetic justice | A |
| he was ready with his elegies | A |
| the day the ocean sailed into the square | B |
| - | |
| 'The sea ' he wrote 'is a forgiving element | C |
| and history only the old odor of blood | D |
| She will come to rest on the soft floor | E |
| of the world barnacled like a great pirate ship | F |
| and blind fish mouthing like girls before a glass | A |
| will bump perhaps San Marco's brittle bones ' | - |
| - | |
| Pleased with these images he paused | G |
| and conjured visions of a wet apocalypse | A |
| the blown church bobbing like a monstrous water toy | H |
| Doge Dandolo's bronze horses from Byzantium | I |
| pawing the black waves incredulous pigeons | A |
| hovering like gulls over the drowning square | B |
| mosaic saints floating gently to pieces | A |
| - | |
| Then he waited as the wind rose as gondoliers | A |
| were rocking in the long furrows of their boats | A |
| and small waves licked the marble lions' eyes | A |
| But still this most improbable of cities | A |
| hung on lewdly enjoying her own smell | J |
| - | |
| Learning later how Florence with her brown bells | A |
| her dried up joke of a river had played | K |
| the ark to all his fantasies of flood | D |
| he felt a little foolish He was walking | L |
| in the gallery then thinking of the doges | A |
| how they tread on clouds which puff and pucker | M |
| like the flesh of their fat Venetian whores | A |
| how thanks to Tintoretto's shrewd old eyes | A |
| they saw themselves amid the holy saints | A |
| how shrewd old Tintoretto for a price | A |
| painted his patrons into paradise | A |
Erica Jong
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Venice, November, 1966 poem by Erica Jong
Best Poems of Erica Jong