Ann Arbor Variations Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDE FGHG IJKI GFGI LGGM JNGJ IOI GPJ IIQ GGI ORI JST IIF UIGOIVIFRGIGWIXF OIYI ZFKI A2IB2C2 FGQD2 RIBI E2JGOA | |
Wet heat drifts through the afternoon | B |
like a campus dog a fraternity ghost | C |
waiting to stay home from football games | D |
The arches are empty clear to the sky | E |
- | |
Except for the leaves those lashes of our | F |
thinking and dreaming and drinking sight | G |
The spherical radiance the Old English | H |
look the sum of our being hath perced | G |
- | |
to the roote all our springs and falls | I |
and now rolls over our limpness a daily | J |
dragon We lose our health in a love | K |
of color drown in a fountain of myriads | I |
- | |
as simply as children It is too hot | G |
our birth was given up to screaming Our | F |
life on these street lawns seems silent | G |
The leaves chatter their comparisons | I |
- | |
to the wind and the sky fills up | L |
before we are out of bed O infinite | G |
our siestas adobe effigies in a land | G |
that is sick of us and our tanned flesh | M |
- | |
The wind blows towards us particularly | J |
the sobbing of our dear friends on both | N |
coasts We are sick of living and afraid | G |
that death will not be by water o sea | J |
- | |
- | |
Along the walks and shaded ways | I |
pregnant women look snidely at children | O |
Two weeks ago they were told in these | I |
- | |
selfsame pools of trefoil the market | G |
for emeralds is collapsing chlorophyll | P |
shines in your eyes the sea's misery | J |
- | |
is progenitor of the dark moss which hides | I |
on the north side of trees and cries | I |
What do they think of slim kids now | Q |
- | |
and how when the summer's gong of day | G |
and night slithers towards their sweat | G |
and towards the nest of their arms | I |
- | |
and thighs do they feel about children | O |
whose hides are pearly with days of swimming | R |
Do they mistake these fresh drops for tears | I |
- | |
The wind works over these women constantly | J |
trying perhaps to curdle their milk | S |
or make their spring unseasonably fearful | T |
- | |
season they face with dread and bright eyes | I |
The leaves wrinkled or shiny like apples | I |
wave women courage and sigh a void temperature | F |
- | |
- | |
The alternatives of summer do not remove | U |
us from this place The fainting into skies | I |
from a diving board the express train to | G |
Detroit's damp bars the excess of affection | O |
on the couch near an open window or a Bauhaus | I |
fire escape the lazy regions of stars all | V |
are strangers Like Mayakovsky read on steps | I |
of cool marble or Yeats danced in a theatre | F |
of polite music The classroon day of dozing | R |
and grammar the partial eclipse of the head | G |
in the row in front of the head of poplars | I |
sweet Syrinx last out the summer in a stay | G |
of iron Workmen loiter before urinals stare | W |
out windows at girders tightly strapped to clouds | I |
And in the morning we whimper as we cook | X |
an egg so far from fluttering sands and azure | F |
- | |
- | |
The violent No of the sun | O |
burns the forehead of hills | I |
Sand fleas arrive from Salt Lake | Y |
and most of the theatres close | I |
- | |
The leaves roll into cigars or | Z |
it seems our eyes stick together | F |
in sleep O forest o brook of | K |
spice o cool gaze of strangers | I |
- | |
the city tumbles towards autumn | A2 |
in a convulsion of tourists | I |
and teachers We dance in the dark | B2 |
forget the anger of what we blame | C2 |
- | |
on the day Children toss and murmur | F |
as a rumba blankets their trees and | G |
beckons their stars closer older now | Q |
We move o'er the world being so much here | D2 |
- | |
It's as if Poseidon left off counting | R |
his waters for a moment In the fields | I |
the silence is music like the moon | B |
The bullfrogs sleep in their hairy caves | I |
- | |
across the avenue a trefoil lamp | E2 |
of the streets tosses luckily | J |
The leaves finally love us and | G |
moonrise we die upon the sun | O |
Frank O'hara
(2)
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