Helen Of Troy Does Countertop Dancing Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFCGHIJCKLMNOPQ RAHSCTUQTVWXQYCZA2B2 C2D2VZZHACE2F2ACG2ZX H2XZI2ZJ2AHK2HZE2 L2M2QZL2L2N2L2L2O2L2 VCL2P2ZL2Q2R2The world is full of women | A |
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself | B |
if they had the chance Quit dancing | C |
Get some self respect | D |
and a day job | E |
Right And minimum wage | F |
and varicose veins just standing | C |
in one place for eight hours | G |
behind a glass counter | H |
bundled up to the neck instead of | I |
naked as a meat sandwich | J |
Selling gloves or something | C |
Instead of what I do sell | K |
You have to have talent | L |
to peddle a thing so nebulous | M |
and without material form | N |
Exploited they'd say Yes any way | O |
you cut it but I've a choice | P |
of how and I'll take the money | Q |
- | |
I do give value | R |
Like preachers I sell vision | A |
like perfume ads desire | H |
or its facsimile Like jokes | S |
or war it's all in the timing | C |
I sell men back their worse suspicions | T |
that everything's for sale | U |
and piecemeal They gaze at me and see | Q |
a chain saw murder just before it happens | T |
when thigh ass inkblot crevice tit and nipple | V |
are still connected | W |
Such hatred leaps in them | X |
my beery worshippers That or a bleary | Q |
hopeless love Seeing the rows of heads | Y |
and upturned eyes imploring | C |
but ready to snap at my ankles | Z |
I understand floods and earthquakes and the urge | A2 |
to step on ants I keep the beat | B2 |
and dance for them because | C2 |
they can't The music smells like foxes | D2 |
crisp as heated metal | V |
searing the nostrils | Z |
or humid as August hazy and languorous | Z |
as a looted city the day after | H |
when all the rape's been done | A |
already and the killing | C |
and the survivors wander around | E2 |
looking for garbage | F2 |
to eat and there's only a bleak exhaustion | A |
Speaking of which it's the smiling | C |
tires me out the most | G2 |
This and the pretence | Z |
that I can't hear them | X |
And I can't because I'm after all | H2 |
a foreigner to them | X |
The speech here is all warty gutturals | Z |
obvious as a slab of ham | I2 |
but I come from the province of the gods | Z |
where meanings are lilting and oblique | J2 |
I don't let on to everyone | A |
but lean close and I'll whisper | H |
My mother was raped by a holy swan | K2 |
You believe that You can take me out to dinner | H |
That's what we tell all the husbands | Z |
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around | E2 |
- | |
Not that anyone here | L2 |
but you would understand | M2 |
The rest of them would like to watch me | Q |
and feel nothing Reduce me to components | Z |
as in a clock factory or abattoir | L2 |
Crush out the mystery | L2 |
Wall me up alive | N2 |
in my own body | L2 |
They'd like to see through me | L2 |
but nothing is more opaque | O2 |
than absolute transparency | L2 |
Look my feet don't hit the marble | V |
Like breath or a balloon I'm rising | C |
I hover six inches in the air | L2 |
in my blazing swan egg of light | P2 |
You think I'm not a goddess | Z |
Try me | L2 |
This is a torch song | Q2 |
Touch me and you'll burn | R2 |
Margaret Atwood
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Helen Of Troy Does Countertop Dancing poem by Margaret Atwood
Best Poems of Margaret Atwood