The Shadow Of God Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCADAEFADAGHIAAJKLM NOPAQADAARSDADTUVWB AXAHJYZA2AB2C2DD2AE2 A F2AAAATAAG2TAB2H2SI2 J2AAHK2AL2 M2AAAJN2JDO2 P2Q2LMDJR2AD A AAJS2AAAAT A TDWM2JIAAA A AQAAAT2Q2TADASAAAAAD 2 A AJAAAAWM2A A TH2U2SAAAAV2 DW2X2Y2AAAADAO2CAAM2 H2EZ2 AQL2Q2L2H2AAA AADAAATBA3 A B3M2EV2C3D2D3Q2A E3DB2C3DAF3D2J G3DDDM2H2QAH3A DH3I3AJ3M2JAQ2To Moh cs | A |
in the marshlands still in the pouring rain | B |
August th where those summoned | C |
and hastily gathered died in thousands | A |
in the space of a moment the chronicler | D |
scribbles in the safety of distance | A |
cruel panthers in a moment to hell's pit | E |
That day the guns chained wheel to wheel | F |
smoke and the cries of men and horses | A |
the knights shot from their saddles armour | D |
dragging them into the mire the hooves | A |
stamping them in the infantry butchered | G |
in the space of a moment the swift | H |
routine of retreat slaughter and rout | I |
the space of a moment No prisoners | A |
the wails of the wounded the dying becks | A |
brimmed with blood and the young king | J |
thrown from his horse drowned in his breastplate | K |
Thereafter Suleyman recalls he sat on the field | L |
in the pouring rain on his glittering throne | M |
to the long applause of his army I am | N |
Sultan Suleyman Han son of Sultan Selim Han | O |
son of Sultan Bayezid Han The shadow of God | P |
And they butcher the captives dig the pits | A |
to bury their own brave dead horses and men | Q |
thousand whose last rainy day was this | A |
and the other dead lie in the rain or scatter | D |
their bones in the wetlands and the reedgrass | A |
Whatever birds pecked out their eyes | A |
their names are no matter nor the stream | R |
they drowned in nor the name of the planet | S |
whose soft brown body they shovelled in after | D |
Thereafter the land burns and the churches | A |
thereafter women and slaves and silver | D |
And thereafter pronounces the historian | T |
his quill's tip brushing his cheek his point | U |
squeaking over the page the lamp's glint | V |
on his inkhorn the long Turkish night | W |
the tomb of the nation dug in the rain | B |
- | |
In the space of a moment in the centuries | A |
moments pile into leaf over leaf | X |
season by season as the winters pass | A |
and the wars roll over and the borders shift | H |
it is ploughland old bones surfacing | J |
at the hoe's edge and the plough's iron | Y |
scapulae and vertebrae rising in a flat | Z |
wide fenced country laid open to the wind | A2 |
prowled by the tractors of the collectives | A |
and the same wandering birds black earth | B2 |
through white snow wind beaten scarecrow | C2 |
and the white silence of another winter | D |
It is a museum of bones in the thick boney | D2 |
stew of each other where some bird sings | A |
in the evergreens and a boy rings a bell | E2 |
in the long white silence that follows | A |
- | |
It is a field of poles upright at a pit's rim | F2 |
carved into cruel faces chiselled in grimaces | A |
spiked helmeted horned a ragged line of posts | A |
that are totems of men straggling off into trees | A |
some aslant the long necks of horses | A |
rearing from snow They are flail and bludgeon | T |
and battleaxe calvaries of yokes and the bows | A |
of the swift horsemen the trailed arms | A |
of the willow tree They are the crescent moon | G2 |
and the star the cross the crown the turban | T |
and the tarboosh gnarled glances of soldiers | A |
the figures of dead men rising from the earth | B2 |
Suleyman with a basket of heads at his pommel | H2 |
and the dead king Lajos in his blue bonnet | S |
Overhead the high jets in the clear blue | I2 |
corridor of cloudless sky above Serbia | J2 |
flying the line of the great rivers | A |
whose names are the same though the names | A |
of the empires and the nations shift | H |
on the maps South of here not far | K2 |
in the debateable lands of the warring states | A |
the bones are again rising in the mud | L2 |
- | |
- | |
- | |
Very fast very slow the music | M2 |
a lament from the villages | A |
a music come down from the mountains | A |
called across rivers across plains | A |
ah no joking and no joking | J |
a gift for the kolo bridegroom | N2 |
the thieves they are singing | J |
dance my love dance faster | D |
faster till we fall down | O2 |
- | |
The reedgrass that will be thatch | P2 |
first snowy fields turned in the plough | Q2 |
A line of trucks in a white field | L |
waiting for grain not yet sown | M |
end of the winter quarter | D |
end of the season of craving | J |
the river's ice drifting south | R2 |
snow collapsing from the buildings | A |
the days of the death of King Winter | D |
- | |
The Bus j r s | A |
- | |
Time to take to the streets | A |
wearing the skins of beasts | A |
masks years in the making offspring | J |
of the old whisperers in the hearth | S2 |
kin to the devotees of trees | A |
and certain stones and all rivers | A |
lord of the vines and beasts | A |
our lady of the wild things the old gods | A |
who never made it into heaven | T |
- | |
Bus s | A |
- | |
They step out of the unwritten | T |
the unremembered out of Illyria | D |
out of the south the dark the flight | W |
and the distant remembrance of panic | M2 |
the horned hoof footed hard drinking | J |
god of the shepherds They step out | I |
through the winter streets in masks | A |
horns in sheepskins and bandoliers | A |
with their bells and their rattles | A |
- | |
Bus s | A |
- | |
With their antlers tall in the skins | A |
of beasts belled shaggy moustache men | Q |
huge with their clubs and horns | A |
wild in their tall wooden masks | A |
coming on from the distance | A |
all the years they have travelled | T2 |
out of the unwritten the agrapha | Q2 |
the history of the forgotten | T |
the long shadows of the lost gods | A |
At noon they have crossed the river | D |
they have taken the streets | A |
filled with organized riot | S |
the ruckus of men in the male dance | A |
the clatter and rattle of flails | A |
the interminable clanging of bells | A |
rain clanking into buckets | A |
in mockery taking their ways | A |
through the orders of anarchy | D2 |
- | |
Bus s | A |
- | |
Fierce and yet not fierce | A |
joking and yet not joking | J |
this is the management of chaos | A |
the war of the great ratchets | A |
the battle of the bells upright animals | A |
striding through the streets | A |
through the cold falling sunlight | W |
in a wild skirling music | M2 |
bearing the skulls of animals | A |
- | |
Bus s | A |
- | |
Others come as veiled hooded women | T |
a brown friar another the devil | H2 |
a joker in a Russian tank mask | U2 |
a Groucho Marx an Austrian helmet | S |
And these others ghosts in dirty sheets | A |
rags sackcloth and ashes and stocking masks | A |
bunched in knots of impudent silence | A |
young men scattering the girls | A |
the dead risen from the dead | V2 |
- | |
Centuries ago the traveller | D |
Evliya elebi warned his far flung | W2 |
wandering countrymen of the masked | X2 |
madmen of Moh cs in the marshland | Y2 |
in their shaggy jackets and bells | A |
and their faceless faces | A |
they are devils devils | A |
in the place of devils | A |
no one should go there | D |
In their own legend of themselves | A |
they chased the Turks out of town | O2 |
in terror In the ill disciplined | C |
shaggy masked half drunk ranks | A |
among pitchforks and whirling clubs | A |
the carved severed head on a stick | M2 |
of a janissary moustache top knot skull | H2 |
goes round and round in the racket | E |
and the gathering fire and the dusk | Z2 |
- | |
How years ago they were fearless | A |
in the place of defeat and rose again | Q |
how years ago a pig's blood painted | L2 |
a cross in the town square and how | Q2 |
the masks stained in animal blood | L2 |
and the wild cries and the kolo | H2 |
was their resistance How once | A |
they were one with the beasts | A |
one with men one with the gods | A |
- | |
Rutting and butting as beasts | A |
sticks for pricks bells balls | A |
and under the mask is another | D |
and another they are Bus s | A |
three days of the year Bus s | A |
parading their ragged squads | A |
to the square where the cannon | T |
from that year of the rain | B |
thunders mud and rags and smoke | A3 |
- | |
Bus s | A |
- | |
Come nightfall on the third day | B3 |
of marching and mayhem and music | M2 |
that is Shrovetide the fire's lit | E |
in the square King Winter is dead | V2 |
carted off in a coffin and burned | C3 |
On the coffin in flowery | D2 |
Hungarian script it's sold | D3 |
our country it's sold we have | Q2 |
nothing left but our fathers' pricks | A |
- | |
Where does this music come from | E3 |
an old woman asks From all round her | D |
from everywhere from earth | B2 |
from the wind from the long turned | C3 |
furrows of defeat the old sorrow | D |
the old joy the songs | A |
of the long gone into the dark | F3 |
It's sold our country | D2 |
and all the thieves are laughing | J |
- | |
Time to march one last time | G3 |
on the town and burn winter | D |
with bells and cannon and fire | D |
round and around the tottering square | D |
masked men and horses the music | M2 |
round and round the kolo | H2 |
the dancing of the hairy men | Q |
and winter goes up in the flames | A |
the tall smoke climbing the sky | H3 |
Bus s | A |
- | |
The sliver of moon the first star | D |
on the pale blue flag of the sky | H3 |
as the sparks flare and die At the edge | I3 |
of the embers of memory the borders | A |
of hearing bells laughter a child | J3 |
a cough girls singing the swift music | M2 |
in the ashes of the evening | J |
whisps of voices at a distance | A |
in that far off | Q2 |
Ken Smith
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