Winter Stars Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGAHCIJK LM NOPQQ RCSQTUCNVWMXYZA2HXB2 C2CN D2E2 F2MG2 H2I2J2 K2XSM L2 M2N2QO2P2Z| My father once broke a man's hand | A |
| Over the exhaust pipe of a John Deere tractor The man | B |
| Ruben Vasquez wanted to kill his own father | C |
| With a sharpened fruit knife he held | D |
| The curved tip of it lightly between his first | E |
| Two fingers so it could slash | F |
| Horizontally with surprising grace | G |
| Across a throat It was like a glinting beak in a hand | A |
| And for a moment the light held still | H |
| On those vines When it was over | C |
| My father simply went in ate lunch then as always | I |
| Lay alone in the dark listening to music | J |
| He never mentioned it | K |
| - | |
| I never understood how anyone could risk his life | L |
| Then listen to Vivaldi | M |
| - | |
| Sometimes I go out into this yard at night | N |
| And stare through the wet branches of an oak | O |
| In winter realize I am looking at the stars | P |
| Again A thin haze of them shining | Q |
| And persisting | Q |
| - | |
| It used to make me feel lighter looking up at them | R |
| In California that light was closer | C |
| In a California no one will ever see again | S |
| My father is beginning to die Something | Q |
| Inside him is slowly taking back | T |
| Every word it ever gave him | U |
| Now if we try to talk I watch my father | C |
| Search for a lost syllable as if it might | N |
| Solve everything though he can't remember now | V |
| The word for it he is ashamed | W |
| If you think of the mind as a place continually | M |
| Visited a whole city placed behind | X |
| The eyes shining I can imagine now its end | Y |
| As when the lights go off one by one | Z |
| In a hotel at night until at last | A2 |
| All the travelers will be asleep or until | H |
| Even the thin glow from the lobby is a kind | X |
| Of sleep while the woman behind the desk | B2 |
| Is applying more lacquer to her nails | C2 |
| You can almost believe that the elevator | C |
| As it ascends must open upon starlight | N |
| - | |
| I stand out on the street do not go in | D2 |
| That was our agreement at my birth | E2 |
| - | |
| And for years I believed | F2 |
| That what went unsaid between us became empty | M |
| And pure like starlight that it persisted | G2 |
| - | |
| I got it all wrong | H2 |
| I wound up believing in words the way a scientist | I2 |
| Believes in carbon after death | J2 |
| - | |
| Tonight I'm talking to you father although | K2 |
| It is quiet here in the Midwest where a small wind | X |
| The size of a wrist wakes the cold again | S |
| Which may be all that's left of you me | M |
| - | |
| When I left home at seventeen I left for good | L2 |
| - | |
| That pale haze of stars goes on on | M2 |
| Like laughter that has found a final silent shape | N2 |
| On a black sky It means everything | Q |
| It cannot say Look it's empty out there cold | O2 |
| Cold enough to reconcile | P2 |
| Even a father even a son | Z |
Larry Levis
(1)
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About Winter Stars
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