Larry Levis

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Elegy With A Chimneysweep Falling Inside It Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABC D EF F GG H IFF J KL M NO K PD QFR RS FO F TUG SF VO S W DV SX YZ I F A2B2 G

Those twenty six letters filling the blackboardA
Compose the dark composeB
The illiterate summer sky its stars as they appearC
-
One by one above the schoolyardD
-
If the soul had a written history nothing would have happenedE
A bird would still be riding the back of a horseF
-
And the horse would go on grazing in a field the gleanersF
-
At one with the land the wind the sun examiningG
Their faces would go on workingG
-
-
Each moment forgotten in the swipe of a scytheH
-
-
But the walls of the labyrinth have already acquiredI
Their rose tint from the blood of slavesF
Crushed into the stone used to build them the windowsF
-
-
Of stained glass are held in place by the shriekJ
-
-
And sighing body of a falling chimneysweep throughK
The baked blackened air This ash was once a villageL
-
-
That snowflake time itselfM
-
-
But until the day it is permitted to curl up in a doorwayN
And try to sleep the snow falling just beyond itO
-
-
There s nothing for it to doK
-
-
The soul rests its head in its hands stares outP
From its desk at the trash littered schoolyardD
-
-
It stays where it was leftQ
When the window fills with pain the soul bears witnessF
But it doesn t write Nor does it write homeR
-
-
Having no need to having no homeR
In this way in no otherS
-
-
Was the soul gradually replaced by the tens of thousandsF
Of things meant to represent itO
-
-
All of which proclaimed or else lamented its absenceF
-
-
Until in the drone of auditoriums lecture halls it becameT
No more than the scraping of a branchU
Against the side of a house no more than the wincingG
-
-
Of a patient on a couch or the pinched nasal tenorS
Of the strung out addict s voiceF
-
-
While this sound of scratching this tapping all nightV
Enlarging the quiet instead of making a music within itO
-
-
Is just a way of joining one thing to anotherS
-
-
Myself to whoever it is sitting there in the schoolroomW
-
-
Sitting there while also being led through the schoolyardD
Where prisoners are exercising in the cold lightV
-
-
A way of joining or trying to join one thing to anotherS
So that the stillness of the clouds the skyX
-
-
Opening beneath the blindfold of the prisoner the copY
Who leads him toward it toward the blankZ
-
-
Sail of the sky at the end of the world are bewilderedI
-
-
So that everything in this moment bewildersF
-
-
Them the odd gentleness each feels in the handA2
Of the other how they don t stop walking not nowB2
-
-
Not for anythingG

Larry Levis



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Elegy With A Chimneysweep Falling Inside It is a poem by Larry Levis. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.


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