A Bronzeville Mother Loiters In Mississippi. Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDE FGHIJFK LMNOP QRSDTU VFLIW XYZA2IB2JHMIC2JD2QQE 2LF2 C2G2LIH2ZI2YJ2GI2 MK2L2MJM2N2 O2P2Q2IR2 LAS2S2OQ2Q T2LU2LV2C2W2FFBX2LY2 Z2AAO OLS2A3OB3 OC3OD3ALQ2E3 QF3 G3H3I3J3J3Q2 AK3I2AY L3OOM3C BN3K3From the first it had been like a | A |
Ballad It had the beat inevitable It had the blood | B |
A wildness cut up and tied in little bunches | C |
Like the four line stanzas of the ballads she had never quite | D |
understood the ballads they had set her to in school | E |
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Herself the milk white maid the maid mild | F |
Of the ballad Pursued | G |
By the Dark Villain Rescued by the Fine Prince | H |
The Happiness Ever After | I |
That was worth anything | J |
It was good to be a maid mild | F |
That made the breath go fast | K |
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Her bacon burned She | L |
Hastened to hide it in the step on can and | M |
Drew more strips from the meat case The eggs and sour milk biscuits | N |
Did well She set out a jar | O |
Of her new quince preserve | P |
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But there was something about the matter of the Dark Villain | Q |
He should have been older perhaps | R |
The hacking down of a villain was more fun to think about | S |
When his menace possessed undisputed breath undisputed height | D |
And best of all when history was cluttered | T |
With the bones of many eaten knights and princesses | U |
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The fun was disturbed then all but nullified | V |
When the Dark Villain was a blackish child | F |
Of Fourteen with eyes still too young to be dirty | L |
And a mouth too young to have lost every reminder | I |
Of its infant softness | W |
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That boy must have been surprised For | X |
These were grown ups Grown ups were supposed to be wise | Y |
And the Fine Prince and that other so tall so broad so | Z |
Grown Perhaps the boy had never guessed | A2 |
That the trouble with grown ups was that under the magnificent shell of adulthood just under | I |
Waited the baby full of tantrums | B2 |
It occurred to her that there may have been something | J |
Ridiculous to the picture of the Fine Prince | H |
Rushing rich with the breadth and height and | M |
Mature solidness whose lack in the Dark Villain was impressing her | I |
Confronting her more and more as this first day after the trial | C2 |
And acquittal wore on rushing | J |
With his heavy companion to hack down unhorsed | D2 |
That little foe So much had happened she could not remember now what that foe had done | Q |
Against her or if anything had been done | Q |
The breaks were everywhere That she could think | E2 |
Of no thread capable of the necessary | L |
Sew work | F2 |
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She made the babies sit in their places at the table | C2 |
Then before calling HIM she hurried | G2 |
To the mirror with her comb and lipstick It was necessary | L |
To be more beautiful than ever | I |
The beautiful wife | H2 |
For sometimes she fancied he looked at her as though | Z |
Measuring her As if he considered Had she been worth it | I2 |
Had she been worth the blood the cramped cries the little stirring bravado The gradual dulling of those Negro eyes | Y |
The sudden overwhelming little boyness in that barn | J2 |
Whatever she might feel or half feel the lipstick necessity was something apart HE must never conclude | G |
That she had not been worth it | I2 |
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HE sat down the Fine Prince and | M |
Began buttering a biscuit HE looked at HIS hands | K2 |
More papers were in from the North HE mumbled More maddening headlines | L2 |
With their pepper words bestiality and barbarism and | M |
Shocking | J |
The half sneers HE had mastered for the trial worked across | M2 |
HIS sweet and pretty face | N2 |
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What HE'd like to do HE explained was kill them all | O2 |
The time lost The unwanted fame | P2 |
Still it had been fun to show those intruders | Q2 |
A thing or two To show that snappy eyed mother | I |
That sassy Northern brown black | R2 |
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Nothing could stop Mississippi | L |
HE knew that Big fella | A |
Knew that | S2 |
And what was so good Mississippi knew that | S2 |
They could send in their petitions and scar | O |
Their newspapers with bleeding headlines Their governors | Q2 |
Could appeal to Washington | Q |
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What I want the older baby said is 'lasses on my jam | T2 |
Whereupon the younger baby | L |
Picked up the molasses pitcher and threw | U2 |
The molasses in his brother's face Instantly | L |
The Fine Prince leaned across the table and slapped | V2 |
The small and smiling criminal | C2 |
She did not speak When the HAND | W2 |
Came down and away and she could look at her child | F |
At her baby child | F |
She could think only of blood | B |
Surely her baby's cheek | X2 |
Had disappeared and in its place surely | L |
Hung a heaviness a lengthening red a red that had no end | Y2 |
She shook her had It was not true of course | Z2 |
It was not true at all The | A |
Child's face was as always the | A |
Color of the paste in her paste jar | O |
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She left the table to the tune of the children's lamentations which were shriller | O |
Than ever She | L |
Looked out of a window She said not a word That | S2 |
Was one of the new Somethings | A3 |
The fear | O |
Tying her as with iron | B3 |
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Suddenly she felt his hands upon her He had followed her | O |
To the window The children were whimpering now | C3 |
Such bits of tots And she their mother | O |
Could not protect them She looked at her shoulders still | D3 |
Gripped in the claim of his hands She tried but could not resist the idea | A |
That a red ooze was seeping spreading darkly thickly slowly | L |
Over her white shoulders her own shoulders | Q2 |
And over all of Earth and Mars | E3 |
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He whispered something to her did the Fine Prince something about love and night and intention | Q |
She heard no hoof beat of the horse and saw no flash of the shining steel | F3 |
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He pulled her face around to meet | G3 |
His and there it was close close | H3 |
For the first time in all the days and nights | I3 |
His mouth wet and red | J3 |
So very very very red | J3 |
Closed over hers | Q2 |
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Then a sickness heaved within her The courtroom Coca Cola | A |
The courtroom beer and hate and sweat and drone | K3 |
Pushed like a wall against her She wanted to bear it | I2 |
But his mouth would not go away and neither would the | A |
Decapitated exclamation points in that Other Woman's eyes | Y |
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She did not scream | L3 |
She stood there | O |
But a hatred for him burst into glorious flower | O |
And its perfume enclasped them big | M3 |
Bigger than all magnolias | C |
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The last bleak news of the ballad | B |
The rest of the rugged music | N3 |
The last quatrain | K3 |
Gwendolyn Brooks
(1)
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