As It Begins With A Brush Stroke On A Snare Drum Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Larry Levis

As It Begins With A Brush Stroke On A Snare Drum Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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The plaza was so still in that moment two years ago that	A
everything was clear	B
As if it had been preserved beneath a kind of lacquered	C
stillness for a while	D
I did not even notice the pigeons lifting above the sad tiles	E
of churches	F
	-
Or how they must have sounded like applause that is not	G
meant for anyone	H
	-
I must not have noticed that blind woman on the corner who	I
begged coins	J
For a living who had one eye swelled shut entirely while	D
the other a thin film	K
Of glaucoma over it that had taken on the lustreless sheen	L
of a nickel	M
	-
Was held wide open to witness spittle on the curb And soon	N
the band	O
In their sun bleached military uniforms were tuning up beneath	P
the blossom of rust	Q
Covering the gazebo its eaves festooned with the off white	R
spiderwebs of unlit Christmas lights	S
	-
And that girl Socorro her smile surfacing voluptuously as	T
an unspoken thought	U
	-
Again was selling gardenias their petals already beginning	V
to appear	B
Faintly discolored around the edges from a basket she carried	W
on her head	X
In an unwobbling stillness Martin was selling chicklets but	Y
no one bought	G
	-
Chicklets anymore no one bought the little squawking birds	Z
or the cheap stone	A2
Animals turned out on a lathe in Veracruz either no one	H
wanted his shoes shined	B2
By then the band was playing show tunes from My Fair Lady	C2
South Pacific was	D2
	-
Interrupted only once because of a routine demonstration by	E2
the Communists who	I
Mostly were demonstrating because it was Sunday because	F2
that is what they did	G2
On Sundays After a while I started walking vaguely away	H2
beside some fading stonework	V
	-
Which in fact is not called Our Lady of Perfect Solitude nor	I2
even Our Sister	J2
Of Perpetual Solitude but simply Santo Domingo I do not	G
know why I walked near it then	K2
passed without entering	V
	-
	-
	-
Still in the painting the children kept skating the others	L2
are probably	C2
Walking home from school at this moment in their yellow	M2
raincoats with	N2
The stale smells left on wax paper locked in their lunch pails	O2
That woman	H
	-
Keeps brushing her hair so somewhere it is still	P2
the riot police	Q2
Are spilling Out of their buses On the marsh above the	R2
Sound there were egrets	Q2
There were black swans nesting in the rushes the canal was	Q2
warm salty	C2
	-
There was a cabin filling with so much moonlight I almost	S2
believed I could	T2
Dissolve in it if I sat very still I sat very still I watched	U2
my son	H
Skating at the edge of a pond in his sleep It was summer	J2
by the time	V2
	-
I finally saw the painting in Brussels counted each one of	W2
the children as if	X2
To make sure they were still there then gradually	C2
lost count in the dream	Y2
Of the plowman on the hill there must have been the face	Q2
of an English poet	Y
	-
Looking as lined as a maple leaf pressed between the pages	Q2
of a book Beneath it	Z2
The Danube is gliding I am just holding his book now	A3
not even needing to read it	Z2
Anymore as I cross into the frontier green wheat alfalfa a	R2
feeling of distance	Q2
	-
In it all like sleep or rain reclaiming some lost rural Missouri	C2
slum town until	P2
It no longer exists now the Hungarian checkpoint where	B3
guards with stars	Q2
The shade of American lipstick on their caps will enter	J2
seem proud of the unchipped	Z2
	-
Deep blue enamel on their machine guns Most of them are	C3
just poor teen agers	Q2
From the surrounding villages farms innocent	Z2
	-
The only glamour that is left	Z2
On the Orient Express	Q2
Is a soiled torn doily on an armrest	Z2
Rhyme then rhyme dream but in the other painting	V
which is not a painting	V
They are trudging home from school in the rain which is like	V
a kind of sleep	D3
When one of them thinks the mind is not the mind in the	R2
unbewitched meticulous	Q2
	-
First shaping of numbers on a blackboard it is only the	R2
shadow of a skater over	J2
A white pond There is a sea beyond it roughened by	E2
whitecaps the mind	Z2
Moves first one way then another then both ways at once	Q2
then one long	V
	-
Glide past the pines that look black from this far away but	Z2
aren't black	V
The boy's friend is saying he 'hates school but only sort	Z2
of ' But the child's	Q2
Not listening he is thinking that something he painted was	Q2
something he dreamt	Z2
	-
And then some of the dream got mixed in with the paint	Z2
then with recess	Q2
The afternoon this long walk in the rain now he will	P2
never get it sorted	Z2
Out In the story the boy falling must have thought his	Q2
father had wings	Q2
	-
Unlike his own real That is why the myth is so clear	B
so cruel	M
And why we survive it Yellow rain gear Black woods Gray	H2
sky Home	E3
Is where you can forget some things the boy is thinking	V
because he is	Q2
	-
Tired from having to walk for so long because he has left	Z2
his galoshes	Q2
At school his shoes are wet as he unthinkingly turns his	Q2
back to me now	A3
Goes up the worn slick steps of a front porch the door	I2
closes And	Z2
	-
Because I am not allowed to see it there is a glass of milk	V
on the table	M
The stairs behind it are dark from a narrow upstairs	Q2
window there is	Q2
A glimpse of the sea later in his dream there is sometimes	Q2
a father	J2
	-
And then it is more like a story about a father then it is	Q2
the hush of ice	Q2
Over a pond's surface In spring when it begins to thaw	F3
there is a little	M
Noise underneath it like steel sighing if steel could sigh as	Q2
it seems to	Z2
	-
Sometimes when you are walking home alone on a trestle	M
above a river there	B3
Is a broken pattern of geese above it a vee decomposing a	R2
sky mottled with blue	Z2
And some clouds It is like a father dissolving setting you	Z2
free what	Z2
	-
Has the father ever achieved that will outlast his own	A2
vanishing And so	Q2
The boy spits over the raillng watches the silvery web	G3
of it falling	V
And thinning until it is gossamer a filament untying itself	H3
forever saying	V
	-
Exactly what forever always meant to say that this long pull	I3
of spring tide in the river	J2
Needs nothing nothing except its one momentary witness	Q2
a boy pausing	V
	-
Above it all on a bridge	J3
	-
In Oaxaca after the bomb went off there were nevertheless	Q2
a few seconds	Q2
A pure stillness in which I could hear the fountain in the	R2
plaza distant traffic	V
The sudden silence of birds Then everyone was rushing	V
through the streets	Q2
	-
Toward a place where sound had been a place that wasn't	Z2
there It is funny	C2
But the sound of a bomb a few seconds after it has gone	K3
off is no longer even	L3
Surprising In a little while it seems only right sad I sat	Z2
in the balcony of a restaurant	Z2
	-
Overlooking it all read a poem by Alberto Blanco in the	R2
magazine edited by Paz	Q2
And waited for the place to open in the next hour watched	Z2
the plaza	R2
Gradually fill with the usual crowds those who love or	I2
those who think they love	W2
	-
Novelty change	M3