The Refinery Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CDEFGHIJKL MNOP QRSTUVWXYQZA2 B2C2 D2QE2F2G2 WUQQ H2I2QJ2Q QH2F2YX K2PL2NQPQour language forged in the dark bycenturies of violent | A |
pressure underground out of the stuff of dead life | B |
- | |
Thirsty and languorous after their long black sleep | C |
The old gods crooned and shuffled and shook their heads | D |
Dry dry By railroad they set out | E |
Across the desert of stars to drink the world | F |
Our mouths had soaked | G |
In the strange sentences we made | H |
While they were asleep a pollen tinted | I |
Slurry of passion and lapsed | J |
Intention whose imagined | K |
Taste made the savage deities hiss and snort | L |
- | |
In the lightless carriages a smell of snake | M |
And coarse fur glands of lymphless breath | N |
And ichor the avid stenches of | O |
Immortal bodies | P |
- | |
Their long train clicked and sighed | Q |
Through the gulfs of night between the planets | R |
And came down through the evening fog | S |
Of redwood canyons From the train | T |
At sunset fiery warehouse windows | U |
Along a wharf Then dusk a gash of neon | V |
Bar Black pinewoods a junction crossing glimpses | W |
Of sluggish surf among the rocks a moan | X |
Of dreamy forgotten divinity calling and fading | Y |
Against the windows of a town Inside | Q |
The train a flash | Z |
Of dragonfly wings an antlered brow | A2 |
- | |
Black night again and then | B2 |
After the bridge a palace on the water | C2 |
- | |
The great Refinery impossible city of lights | D2 |
A million bulbs tracing its turreted | Q |
Boulevards and mazes The castle of a person | E2 |
Pronounced alive the Corporation a fictional | F2 |
Lord real in law | G2 |
- | |
Barbicans and torches | W |
Along the siding where the engine slows | U |
At the central tanks a ward | Q |
Of steel palisades valved and chandeliered | Q |
- | |
The muttering gods | H2 |
Greedily penetrate those bright pavilions | I2 |
Libation of Benzene Naphthalene Asphalt | Q |
Gasoline Tar syllables | J2 |
Fractioned and cracked from unarticulated | Q |
- | |
Crude the smeared keep of life that fed | Q |
On itself in pitchy darkness when the gods | H2 |
Were new inedible volatile | F2 |
And sublimated afresh to sting | Y |
Our tongues who use it refined from oil of stone | X |
- | |
The gods batten on the vats and drink up | K2 |
Lovecries and memorized Chaucer lines from movies | P |
And songs hoarded in mortmain exiles' charms | L2 |
The basal or desperate distillates of breath | N |
Steeped brewed and spent | Q |
As though we were their aphids or their bees | P |
That monstered up sweetness for them while they dozed | Q |
Robert Pinsky
(1)
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