Gioconda And Si-ya-u Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB C DDEEDFE GDHEEIFJEDAKLEE EELMEECEEED NE O OEOENEPHEDOQDDDORE ESETEDEDE EEEDDD DENDP D UV E WDEDXE EECYDE Z DDDDEDA2 EDNEEEEB2EEEDD H DDC2EEDD2E H EE H E2DDDEDF2EEEEEDDEEEE EEODWEW H EDEE DD G2D D HHH DDD EDEHHH DDD EEHEEEDDEEDEH2I2EDC2 J2D E H DEBEDDDHDEED H EEK2EEL2M2N2O2QHD2DE D EEE DDD KEDDD E E Q E O2 E DP2NED E DEEto the memory of my friend SI YA U | A |
whose head was cut off in Shanghai | B |
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A CLAIM | C |
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Renowned Leonardo's | D |
world famous | D |
La Gioconda | E |
has disappeared | E |
And in the space | D |
vacated by the fugitive | F |
a copy has been placed | E |
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The poet inscribing | G |
the present treatise | D |
knows more than a little | H |
about the fate | E |
of the real Gioconda | E |
She fell in love | I |
with a seductive | F |
graceful youth | J |
a honey tongued | E |
almond eyed Chinese | D |
named SI YA U | A |
Gioconda ran off | K |
after her lover | L |
Gioconda was burned | E |
in a Chinese city | E |
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I Nazim Hikmet | E |
authority | E |
on this matter | L |
thumbing my nose at friend and foe | M |
five times a day | E |
undaunted | E |
claim | C |
I can prove it | E |
if I can't | E |
I'll be ruined and banished | E |
forever from the realm of poesy | D |
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Part One | N |
Excerpts from Gioconda's Diary | E |
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March Paris Louvre Museum | O |
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At last I am bored with the Louvre Museum | O |
You can get fed up with boredom very fast | E |
I am fed up with my boredom | O |
And from the devastation inside me | E |
I drew this lesson | N |
to visit | E |
a museum is fine | P |
to be a museum piece is terrible | H |
In this palace that imprisons the past | E |
I am placed under such a heavy sentence | D |
that as the paint on my face cracks out of boredom | O |
I'm forced to keep grinning without letting up | Q |
Because | D |
I am the Gioconda from Florence | D |
whose smile is more famous than Florence | D |
I am bored with the Louvre Museum | O |
And since you get sick soon enough | R |
of conversing with the past | E |
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I decided | E |
from now on | S |
to keep a diary | E |
Writing of today may be of some help | T |
in forgetting yesterday | E |
However the Louvre is a strange place | D |
Here you might find | E |
Alexander the Great's | D |
Longines watch complete with chronometer | E |
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but | E |
not a single sheet of clean notebook paper | E |
or a pencil worth a piaster | E |
Damn your Louvre your Paris | D |
I'll write these entries | D |
on the back of my canvas | D |
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And so | D |
when I picked a pen from the pocket | E |
of a nearsighted American | N |
sticking his red nose into my skirts | D |
his hair stinking of wine | P |
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I started my memoirs | D |
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I'm writing on my back | U |
the sorrow of having a famous smile | V |
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March Night | E |
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The Louvre has fallen asleep | W |
In the dark the armless Venus | D |
looks like a veteran of the Great War | E |
The gold helmet of a knight gleams | D |
as the light from the night watchman's lantern | X |
strikes a dark picture | E |
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Here | E |
in the Louvre | E |
my days are all the same | C |
like the six sides of a wood cube | Y |
My head is full of sharp smells | D |
like the shelf of a medicine cabinet | E |
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March | Z |
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I admire those Flemish painters | D |
is it easy to give the air of a naked goddess | D |
to the plump ladies | D |
of milk and sausage merchants | D |
But | E |
even if you wear silk panties | D |
cow silk panties cow | A2 |
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Last night | E |
a window | D |
was left open | N |
The naked Flemish goddesses caught cold | E |
All day | E |
today | E |
turning their bare | E |
mountain like pink behinds to the public | B2 |
they coughed and sneezed | E |
I caught cold too | E |
So as not to look silly smiling with a cold | E |
I tried to hide my sniffles | D |
from the visitors | D |
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April | H |
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Today I saw a Chinese | D |
he was nothing like those Chinese with their topknots | D |
How long | C2 |
he gazed at me | E |
I'm well aware | E |
the favor of Chinese | D |
who work ivory like silk | D2 |
is not to be taken lightly | E |
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April | H |
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I caught the name of the Chinese who comes every day | E |
SI YA U | E |
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April | H |
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Today we spoke | E2 |
in the language of eyes | D |
He works as a weaver days | D |
and studies nights | D |
Now it's a long time since the night | E |
came on like a pack of black shirted Fascists | D |
The cry of a man out of work | F2 |
who jumped into the Seine | E |
rose from the dark water | E |
And ah you on whose fist size head | E |
mountain like winds descend | E |
at this very minute you're probably busy | E |
building towers of thick leather bound books | D |
to get answers to the questions you asked of the stars | D |
READ | E |
SI YA U | E |
READ | E |
And when your eyes find in the lines what they desire | E |
when your eyes tire | E |
rest your tired head | E |
like a black and yellow Japanese chrysanthemum | O |
on the books | D |
SLEEP | W |
SI YA U | E |
SLEEP | W |
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April | H |
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I've begun to forget | E |
the names of those Renaissance masters | D |
I want to see | E |
the black bird and flower | E |
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watercolors | D |
that slant eyed Chinese painters | D |
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drip | G2 |
from their long thin bamboo brushes | D |
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NEWS FROM THE PARIS WIRELESS | D |
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HALLO | H |
HALLO | H |
HALLO | H |
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PARIS | D |
PARIS | D |
PARIS | D |
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Voices race through the air | E |
like the fiery greyhounds | D |
The wireless in the Eiffel Tower calls out | E |
HALLO | H |
HALLO | H |
HALLO | H |
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PARIS | D |
PARIS | D |
PARIS | D |
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I TOO am Oriental this voice is for me | E |
My ears are receivers too | E |
I too must listen to Eiffel | H |
News from China | E |
News from China | E |
News from China | E |
The dragon that came down from the Kaf mountains | D |
has spread his wings | D |
across the golden skies of the Chinese homeland | E |
But | E |
in this business it's not only the British lord's | D |
gullet shaved | E |
like the thick neck | H2 |
of a plucked hen | I2 |
that will be cut | E |
but also | D |
the long | C2 |
thin | J2 |
beard of Confucius | D |
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FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY | E |
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April | H |
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Today my Chinese | D |
looked my straight | E |
in the eye | B |
and asked | E |
Those who crush our rice fields | D |
with the caterpillar treads of their tanks | D |
and who swagger through our cities | D |
like emperors of hell | H |
are they of YOUR race | D |
the race of him who CREATED you | E |
I almost raised my hand | E |
and cried No | D |
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April | H |
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Tonight at the blare of an American trumpet | E |
the horn of a horsepower Ford | E |
I awoke from a dream | K2 |
and what I glimpsed for an instant | E |
instantly vanished | E |
What I'd seen was a still blue lake | L2 |
In this lake the slant eyed light of my life | M2 |
had wrapped his fingers around the neck of a gilded fish | N2 |
I tried to reach him | O2 |
my boat a Chinese teacup | Q |
and my sail | H |
the embroidered silk | D2 |
of a Japanese | D |
bamboo umbrella | E |
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NEWS FROM THE PARIS WIRELESS | D |
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HALLO | E |
HALLO | E |
HALLO | E |
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PARIS | D |
PARIS | D |
PARIS | D |
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The radio station signs off | K |
Once more | E |
blue shirted Parisians | D |
fill Paris with red voices | D |
and red colors | D |
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FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY | E |
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May | E |
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Today my Chinese failed to show up | Q |
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May | E |
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Still no sign of him | O2 |
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May | E |
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My days | D |
are like the waiting room | P2 |
of a station | N |
eyes glued | E |
to the tracks | D |
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May | E |
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Sculptors of Greece | D |
painters of Seljuk china | E |
weavers of fier | E |
Nazim Hikmet
(1)
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