Zone Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A B C DEF GHIBJKLM NEMCOMMPQM CCMM RSTFUSFVCWXMY ZA2ZB2C2ZD2OOE2F2G2M MMMMBH2MMI2B J2K2MMMM JML2M2CBN2O2P2C M2M2 M2C2MMC2H C2BMCM2M2 BSM2M2 MVMMO2SM M B M2 M2OM2M2 M2O MQ2M2R2R2H MMSWOMM2B BMMOMM S2S2 M2 SM2 M M2 M F MM2 MC2 O2S T2MU2M Z M2

At last you're tired of this elderly worldA
-
Shepherdess O Eiffel Tower this morning the bridges are bleatingB
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You're fed up living with antiquityC
-
Even the automobiles are antiquesD
Religion alone remains entirely new religionE
Remains as simple as an airport hangarF
-
In all Europe only you O Christianism are not oldG
The most modem European Pope Pius X it's youH
The windows watch and shame has sealedI
The confessionals against you this morningB
Flyers catalogs hoardings sing aloudJ
Here's poetry this morning and for prose you're reading the tabloidsK
Disposable paperbacks filled with crimes and policeL
Biographies of great men a thousand various titlesM
-
I saw a pretty street this morning I forgot the nameN
New and cleanly it was the sun's clarionE
Executives laborers exquisite stenographersM
Criss cross Monday through Saturday four times dailyC
Three times every morning sirens groanO
At the lunch hour a rabid bell barksM
The lettering on the walls and billboardsM
the doorplates and posters twitters parakeet styleP
I love the swank of that streetQ
Situated in Paris between the rue Aumont Thieville and the avenue des TernesM
-
Here's the young street and you're still a babyC
Dressed by your mother in blue and white onlyC
You're very pious and with your oldest friend Rene DalizeM
Nothing is more fun than Masses and LitaniesM
-
-
It's nine o'clock the gaslight is low you leave your bedR
You pray all night in the school chapelS
Meanwhile an eternal adorable amethyst depthT
Christ's flamboyant halo spins foreverF
Behold the beautiful lily of worshipU
Behold the red haired torch inextinguishableS
Behold the pale son and scarlet of the dolorous MotherF
Behold the tree forever tufted with prayerV
Behold the double gallows honor and eternityC
Behold the six pointed starW
Behold the God who dies on Friday and rises on SundayX
Behold the Christ who flies higher than aviatorsM
He holds the world's record for altitudeY
-
Christ pupil of the eyeZ
Twentieth pupil of the centuries knows its stuffA2
And bird changed this century like Jesus climbs the skyZ
Devils in the abyss look up to watchB2
They say this century mimics Simon Magus in JudeaC2
It takes a thief to catch a thief they cryZ
Angels flutter around the pretty trapeze actD2
Icarus Enoch Elijah Apollonius of TyanaO
Hover as close to the airplane as they canO
Sometimes they give way to other men hauling the EucharistE2
Priests eternally climbing the elevating HostF2
The plane descends at last its wings unfoldedG2
bursts into a million swallowsM
Full speed come the crows the owls and falconsM
From Africa ibis storks flamingoesM
The Roc bird famous with writers and poetsM
Glides Adam's skull the original head in its talonsM
The horizon screams an eagle pouncingB
And from America there comes a hummingbirdH2
From China sinuous peeheesM
Who have only one wing and who fly in couplesM
And here's a dove immaculate spiritI2
Escorted by lyre bird and shimmery peacockB
-
Phoenix the pyre the self resurrectedJ2
Obscures everything ardently briefly with ashK2
The sirens abandon their perilous channelsM
Each one singing more beautifully arrivesM
Everyone eagle Phoenix Chinese peeheesM
Eager to befriend a machine that fliesM
-
You are walking in Paris alone inside a crowdJ
Herds of buses bellow and come too closeM
Love anguish clutches your throatL2
You must never again be lovedM2
In the Dark Ages you would have entered a monasteryC
You are ashamed to overhear yourself prayingB
You laugh at yourself and the laughter crackles like hellfireN2
The sparks gild the ground and background of your lifeO2
Your life is a painting in a dark museumP2
And sometimes you examine it closelyC
-
You are walking in Paris the women are bloodsoakedM2
It was and I have no wish to remember it was the end of beautyM2
-
In Chartres from her entourage of flames Our Lady beamed at meM2
The blood of your Sacred Heart drenched me in MontmartreC2
I'm sick of hearing blissful promisesM
The love I feel is a venereal diseaseM
And the image possessing you in your pain your insomniaC2
Vanishes and it is always near youH
-
And now you are on the RivieraC2
Under lemon trees that never stop bloomingB
You are boating with friendsM
One is from Nice one is from Menton two from La TurbieC
We are staring terrified at giant squidM2
At fish the symbols of Jesus swimming through seaweedM2
-
You are in the garden at an inn outside of PragueB
You are completely happy a rose is on the tableS
And instead of getting on with your short storyM2
You watch the rosebug sleeping in the rose's heartM2
-
Appalled you see yourself reproduced in the agates of Saint VitusM
You were sad near to death to see yourself thereV
You looked as bewildered as LazarusM
In the Jewish ghetto the clock runs backwardsM
And you go backwards also through a slow lifeO2
Climbing the Hradchen listening at nightfallS
To Bohemian songs in the singing tavernsM
-
You in Marseilles among the watermelonsM
-
Yu in Coblenz at the Hotel GiganticB
-
You in Rome beneath a Japanese treeM2
-
You in Amsterdam with a girl you find pretty who is uglyM2
She's engaged to marry a student from LeydenO
Where you can rent rooms in Latin Cubicula locandaM2
I remember spending three days there and three in GoudaM2
-
You are in Paris hauled before the magistrateM2
You are under arrest you are a criminal nowO
-
You went on sorrowful and giddy travelsM
Ignorant still of dishonesty and old ageQ2
Love afflicted you at twenty and again at thirtyM2
I've lived like a fool and I've wasted my timeR2
You dare not look at your hands I want to weep all the timeR2
On you on the one I love on everything that frightened youH
-
And now you are crying at the sight of refugeesM
Who believe in God who pray whose women nurse babiesM
The hall of the train station is filled with the refugee smellS
Like the Magi refugees believe in their starW
They expect to find silver mines in the ArgentineO
And to return like kings to their abandoned countriesM
One family carries a red eiderdown you carry your heartM2
Eiderdown and dreams are equally fantasticB
-
Some of the refugees stay on in Paris settlingB
Into slums on the rue des Rosiers or the rue des EcouffesM
I have seen them often at dusk they breathe at their doorwaysM
They budge from home as reluctantly as chessmenO
They are chiefly Jewish the women wear wigsM
And haunt backrooms of little shops in little chairsM
-
You're standing at the metal counter of some diveS2
Drinking wretched coffee where the wretched liveS2
-
You are in a cavernous restaurant at nightM2
-
These women are not evil they are used up regretfulS
Each has tormented someone even the ugliestM2
-
She is the daughter of a police sergeant from JerseyM
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Her hands I'd never noticed are hard and crackedM2
-
My pity aches along the seams of her bellyM
-
I humble my mouth to her grotesque laughterF
-
You're alone when morning comesM
The milkmen jingle bottles in the streetM2
-
Night beautiful courtesan the night withdrawsM
Fraudulent Ferdine or careful LeahC2
-
And you drink an alcohol as caustic as your lifeO2
Your life you drink as alcoholS
-
You walk to Auteuil you want to go on foot to sleepT2
At home among your South Sea and Guinean fetishesM
Christs of another shape another faithU2
Subordinate Christs of uncertain hopesM
-
Goodbye GoodbyeZ
-
Sun cut throatedM2

Guillaume Apollinaire



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