From A School Anthology Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBBDEFBGHBAIJKLMNA OPQOBQROBBOASTUBVBOB WXBBTYZA2B2YJBC2JLD2 A2E2KBTJJOTOSF2BG2OH 2TBBBI2G2I2OJ2TTAATT K2J2TTL2M2OG2TJ2TJ2A TBOJ2J2AG2J2OBM2BBBB TBTTTSN2TOBJ2BTBJ2G2 G2TBOBTTTJ2J2OTO2BOT TG2BTTOBBP2BBATG2BJ2 BSBJ2OBTBQ2G2BOBM2OB TOJ2BOBOJ2J2BJ2TTE Larionova | A |
E Larionova Brunette A colonel's | B |
and a typist's daughter Looked | C |
at you like someone studying a clockface | B |
She tried to help her fellow mortals | B |
One day when we were lying side by side | D |
upon the beach crumbling some chocolate | E |
she said looking straight ahead out | F |
to where the yachts held to their course | B |
that if I wanted to I could | G |
She loved to kiss Her mouth | H |
reminded me of the caves of Kars | B |
But I wasn't scared off | A |
I hold | I |
this memory dear like a trophy won | J |
on some unintelligible battle | K |
front from enemies unknown | L |
That lover of plump women that lurking tom | M |
D Kulikov then hove in sight | N |
he married her did Dima Kulikov | A |
She joined a women's choir | O |
while he toils in a classified establishment | P |
a great bony engineer | Q |
But I can still recall the long corridor | O |
and my struggle with her on the chest of drawers | B |
Dima at the time was an ugly little pioneer | Q |
Where did it all go Where's the reference point | R |
And how can one today hope to discover | O |
that which has transfigured all these lives | B |
A strange world lurked behind her eyes | B |
she could not understand herself Or rather | O |
she did not understand it even as a wife | A |
Kulikov is living I am living She is living | S |
But what happened to that world | T |
Perhaps it is keeping them awake | U |
I keep mumbling my words | B |
Snatches of a waltz come to me through the wall | V |
And the rain rustles on broken bricks | B |
Oleg Poddobry | O |
Oleg Poddobry His father was | B |
a fencing coach He was familiar with | W |
it all thrust parry lunge | X |
No ladies' man nevertheless | B |
he used to score as sometimes happens | B |
in the world of sports from offside | T |
That was at night His mother was sick | Y |
his little brother wailing in the crib | Z |
Oleg picked up an axe and when | A2 |
his father entered battle began | B2 |
But the neighbours arrived in the nick | Y |
and four of them got the better of the son | J |
I remember his face his hands | B |
next the foil with a wooden grip | C2 |
Sometimes we practised fencing in the kitchen | J |
He got hold of a ring with a whopping stone | L |
used to splash around in out communal bath | D2 |
He and I left school together then | A2 |
he joined a cookery class while I | E2 |
worked as a milling operator in the Arsenal | K |
He baked pancakes in the Taurid Gardens | B |
We had a good time carting firewood | T |
on New Year's Eve sold fir trees at the station | J |
Unfortunately in association | J |
with some low character | O |
he did a shop he got three years for that | T |
He warmed his ration up over the bonfire | O |
Was released Survived some heavy drinking | S |
Did factory construction work | F2 |
Got married to a nurse it seems | B |
Began to paint Wanted apparently | G2 |
to take up art His landscapes were | O |
in places not unlike | H2 |
still lifes Then he got pinched | T |
for playing tricks with medical certificates | B |
Now all there is is silence | B |
I haven't seen him now for years | B |
Was inside myself but didn't run into him | I2 |
Now I am free But even out of gaol | G2 |
I never see him | I2 |
Somewhere | O |
he is surely strolling through the woods breathing in | J2 |
the wind Neither kitchen gaol nor college could | T |
absorb him And he vanished Like Jack Frost | T |
he managed to disguise himself | A |
I hope he is alive and safe | A |
Now he excites my interest | T |
like the other characters from out of childhood | T |
But he is more unreachable than they | K2 |
T Zimina | J2 |
T Zimina a delightful child | T |
Her mother was an engineer her dad | T |
a tally clerk I never knew them | L2 |
She was not easily impressed Although | M2 |
a frontier pilot married her | O |
But that was later Her trouble | G2 |
started earlier than that She had | T |
a relative A district committee man | J2 |
With a car Her folks were separated | T |
Evidently they had problems of their own | J2 |
A car was quite unheard of | A |
Well it all began with that | T |
She was upset But later things | B |
seemed to be improving as it were | O |
A gloomy Georgian came on the scene | J2 |
But suddenly he landed up in prison | J2 |
And then she gave herself | A |
to the counter in a large haberdashery | G2 |
Linen fabrics eau de Cologne | J2 |
She loved the whole atmosphere | O |
the confidences and her friends' admirers | B |
Passers by goggling through the window | M2 |
In the distance the officers' Club And officers | B |
flocking like birds with a mass of buttons | B |
The pilot returning from the skies | B |
congratulated her on her good looks | B |
He gave her a champagne salute | T |
Marriage However in the Air Force | B |
a high value is placed on chastity it | T |
is raised to the level of an absolute | T |
And it was this scholasticism that | T |
accounted for her almost drowning | S |
She had already found a bridge but winter'd come | N2 |
The canal was covered with an icy crust | T |
And again she hurried to her counter | O |
A fringe edged her eyelashes | B |
Onto her ashy hair the neon | J2 |
lights poured their radiance | B |
Spring and by the doors flung wide | T |
the current of customers seethes | B |
She stands and gazes from the piles of linen | J2 |
into the murky channel like a Lorelei | G2 |
Yu Sandul | G2 |
Yu Sandul Sweet tempered as a polecat | T |
With a face that sharpened towards the nose | B |
Informed on people Always wore a collar | O |
Went into raptures over caps with peaks | B |
Made speeches in the lavatory about | T |
whether the badge should be pinned on the jacket | T |
Pinned it on Generally enthused | T |
over all kinds of emblems and insignia | J2 |
Loved ranks and titles to distraction | J2 |
Styled himself PT Instructor' | O |
though was as old as Jacob to look at | T |
Considered furunculosis as his scourge | O2 |
Was susceptible to colds | B |
stayed at home in bad weather | O |
Mugged up his Bradis tables Was bored | T |
Knew chemistry and yearned for the institute | T |
But landed in the infantry after school | G2 |
those secret underground forces | B |
Now he is drilling holes It's said | T |
in the Diesel works That may not be so accurate | T |
But perhaps accuracy is irrelevant here | O |
Of course it's a speciality a status | B |
What's important is he's doing a correspondence course | B |
At this point we will lift the curtain's edge | P2 |
At dusk besides absorbing Marx he leafs | B |
through The Strength of Materials Such books | B |
incidentally give off | A |
a special scent at night | T |
Doesn't consider himself to be | G2 |
a simple worker In fact looks to the next class | B |
At dusk he strives for new | J2 |
horizons Metal's resistance | B |
is pleasanter in theory He is bursting | S |
to be an engineer to get at blueprints | B |
And come what may he will be one | J2 |
Like this the amount of labour | O |
surplus value progress | B |
And all this scholasticism about the market | T |
He makes his way through dense thickets | B |
Would like to marry But hasn't the time | Q2 |
And he prefers parries casual | G2 |
relationships addresses | B |
Our future smiling engineer' | O |
He remembers the sombre mass | B |
and gazes past the girls out of the window | M2 |
He is lonely in his own manner | O |
He is a traitor to his class | B |
Perhaps I am overdoing it But | T |
the utilization of a class for hire | O |
is more dangerous than the perfidy of men | J2 |
Youth is sinful Blood is hot ' he says | B |
I even remember that plain speaking poster | O |
that dealt with casual relationships | B |
But there is no clinic and no doctor | O |
to guard you against these d class ones to | J2 |
protect you from the inflammation | J2 |
And if the age we live in is no wife to us | B |
then it's so as not to pass on the infection | J2 |
from this generation to the next | T |
That is a baton we can do without | T |
Joseph Brodsky
(1)
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