Love Is A Parallax Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCCD EEFGHI BBJKLM NOMJJJ JJJCCJ PPQJJR SSBTUB VVWXXW YYZA2A2A2 XA2A2JJA2 XXB2A2A2A2 A2A2XA2A2A2 JJC2KKC2'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy | A |
train tracks always meet not here but only | A |
in the impossible mind's eye | B |
horizons beat a retreat as we embark | C |
on sophist seas to overtake that mark | C |
where wave pretends to drench real sky ' | D |
- | |
'Well then if we agree it is not odd | E |
that one man's devil is another's god | E |
or that the solar spectrum is | F |
a multitude of shaded grays suspense | G |
on the quicksands of ambivalence | H |
is our life's whole nemesis | I |
- | |
So we could rave on darling you and I | B |
until the stars tick out a lullaby | B |
about each cosmic pro and con | J |
nothing changes for all the blazing of | K |
our drastic jargon but clock hands that move | L |
implacably from twelve to one | M |
- | |
We raise our arguments like sitting ducks | N |
to knock them down with logic or with luck | O |
and contradict ourselves for fun | M |
the waitress holds our coats and we put on | J |
the raw wind like a scarf love is a faun | J |
who insists his playmates run | J |
- | |
Now you my intellectual leprechaun | J |
would have me swallow the entire sun | J |
like an enormous oyster down | J |
the ocean in one gulp you say a mark | C |
of comet hara kiri through the dark | C |
should inflame the sleeping town | J |
- | |
So kiss the drunks upon the curb and dames | P |
in dubious doorways forget their monday names | P |
caper with candles in their heads | Q |
the leaves applaud and santa claus flies in | J |
scattering candy from a zeppelin | J |
playing his prodigal charades | R |
- | |
The moon leans down to took the tilting fish | S |
in the rare river wink and laugh we lavish | S |
blessings right and left and cry | B |
hello and then hello again in deaf | T |
churchyard ears until the starlit stiff | U |
graves all carol in reply | B |
- | |
Now kiss again till our strict father leans | V |
to call for curtain on our thousand scenes | V |
brazen actors mock at him | W |
multiply pink harlequins and sing | X |
in gay ventriloquy from wing to wing | X |
while footlights flare and houselights dim | W |
- | |
Tell now we taunt where black or white begins | Y |
and separate the flutes from violins | Y |
the algebra of absolutes | Z |
explodes in a kaleidoscope of shapes | A2 |
that jar while each polemic jackanapes | A2 |
joins his enemies' recruits | A2 |
- | |
The paradox is that 'the play's the thing' | X |
though prima donna pouts and critic stings | A2 |
there burns throughout the line of words | A2 |
the cultivated act a fierce brief fusion | J |
which dreamers call real and realists illusion | J |
an insight like the flight of birds | A2 |
- | |
Arrows that lacerate the sky while knowing | X |
the secret of their ecstasy's in going | X |
some day moving one will drop | B2 |
and dropping die to trace a wound that heals | A2 |
only to reopen as flesh congeals | A2 |
cycling phoenix never stops | A2 |
- | |
So we shall walk barefoot on walnut shells | A2 |
of withered worlds and stamp out puny hells | A2 |
and heavens till the spirits squeak | X |
surrender to build our bed as high as jack's | A2 |
bold beanstalk lie and love till sharp scythe hacks | A2 |
away our rationed days and weeks | A2 |
- | |
Then jet the blue tent topple stars rain down | J |
and god or void appall us till we drown | J |
in our own tears today we start | C2 |
to pay the piper with each breath yet love | K |
knows not of death nor calculus above | K |
the simple sum of heart plus heart | C2 |
Sylvia Plath
(1)
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