At Pleasure Bay Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHEEIJKEGLMNGO EAPIGQRSTUVWEGXEYZA2 GB2C2GD2GWE2F2GRG2H2 I2B2J2REK2L2GVGEGGGG M2GC2H2EEN2GGGGGH2O2 GH2K2GGGGGEAIn the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay | A |
A catbird singing never the same phrase twice | B |
Here under the pines a little off the road | C |
In the Chief of Police | D |
And Mrs W killed themselves together | E |
Sitting in a roadster Ancient unshaken pilings | F |
And underwater chunks of still mortared brick | G |
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom | H |
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel and Theater | E |
And here's where boats blew two blasts for the keeper | E |
To shunt the iron swing bridge He leaned on the gears | I |
Like a skipper in the hut that housed the works | J |
And the bridge moaned and turned on its middle pier | K |
To let them through In the middle of the summer | E |
Two or three cars might wait for the iron trusswork | G |
Winching aside with maybe a child to notice | L |
A name on the stern in black and gold on white | M |
Sandpiper Patsy Ann Do Not Disturb | N |
The Idler If a boat was running whiskey | G |
The bridge clanged shut behind it as it passed | O |
And opened up again for the Coast Guard cutter | E |
Slowly as a sundial and always jammed halfway | A |
The roadbed whole but opened like a switch | P |
The river pulling and coursing between the piers | I |
Never the same phrase twice the catbird filling | G |
The humid August evening near the inlet | Q |
With borrowed music that he melds and changes | R |
Dragonflies and sandflies frogs in the rushes two bodies | S |
Not moving in the open car among the pines | T |
A sliver of story The tenor at Price's Hotel | U |
In clown costume unfurls the sorrow gathered | V |
In ruffles at his throat and cuffs high quavers | W |
That hold like splashes of light on the dark water | E |
The aria's closing phrases changed and fading | G |
And after a gap of quiet cheers and applause | X |
Audible in the houses across the river | E |
Some in the audience weeping as if they had melted | Y |
Inside the music Never the same In Berlin | Z |
The daughter of an English lord in love | A2 |
With Adolf Hitler whom she has met She is taking | G |
Possession of the apartment of a couple | B2 |
Elderly well off Jews They survive the war | C2 |
To settle here in the Bay the old lady | G |
Teaches piano but the whole world swivels | D2 |
And gapes at their feet as the girl and a high up Nazi | G |
Examine the furniture the glass the pictures | W |
The elegant story that was theirs and now | E2 |
Is part of hers A few months later the English | F2 |
Enter the war and she shoots herself in a park | G |
An addled upper class girl her life that passes | R |
Into the lives of others or into a place | G2 |
The taking of lives the Chief and Mrs W | H2 |
Took theirs to stay together as local ghosts | I2 |
Last flurries of kisses the revolver's barrel | B2 |
Shivers of a story that a child might hear | J2 |
And half remember voices in the rushes | R |
A singing in the willows From across the river | E |
Faint quavers of music the same phrase twice and again | K2 |
Ranging and building Over the high new bridge | L2 |
The flashing of traffic homeward from the racetrack | G |
With one boat chugging under the arches outward | V |
Unnoticed through Pleasure Bay to the open sea | G |
Here's where the people stood to watch the theater | E |
Burn on the water All that night the fireboats | G |
Kept playing their spouts of water into the blaze | G |
In the morning smoking pilasters and beams | G |
Black smell of char for weeks the ruin already | G |
Soaking back into the river After you die | M2 |
You hover near the ceiling above your body | G |
And watch the mourners awhile A few days more | C2 |
You float above the heads of the ones you knew | H2 |
And watch them through a twilight As it grows darker | E |
You wander off and find your way to the river | E |
And wade across On the other side night air | N2 |
Willows the smell of the river and a mass | G |
Of sleeping bodies all along the bank | G |
A kind of singing from among the rushes | G |
Calling you further forward in the dark | G |
You lie down and embrace one body the limbs | G |
Heavy with sleep reach eagerly up around you | H2 |
And you make love until your soul brims up | O2 |
And burns free out of you and shifts and spills | G |
Down over into that other body and you | H2 |
Forget the life you had and begin again | K2 |
On the same crossing maybe as a child who passes | G |
Through the same place But never the same way twice | G |
Here in the daylight the catbird in the willows | G |
The new caf eacute with a terrace and a landing | G |
Frogs in the cattails where the swing bridge was | G |
Here's where you might have slipped across the water | E |
When you were only a presence at Pleasure Bay | A |
Robert Pinsky
(1)
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