Seven Laments For The War-dead Poem Rhyme Scheme

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	A
Mr Beringer whose son	B
fell at the Canal that strangers dug	C
so ships could cross the desert	D
crosses my path at Jaffa Gate	E
	-
He has grown very thin has lost	F
the weight of his son	B
That's why he floats so lightly in the alleys	G
and gets caught in my heart like little twigs	H
that drift away	I
	-
	-
As a child he would mash his potatoes	J
to a golden mush	K
And then you die	L
	-
A living child must be cleaned	M
when he comes home from playing	N
But for a dead man	O
earth and sand are clear water in which	P
his body goes on being bathed and purified	Q
forever	R
	-
	-
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier	R
across there On the enemy's side A good landmark	S
for gunners of the future	R
	-
Or the war monument in London	B
at Hyde Park Corner decorated	T
like a magnificent cake yet another soldier	R
lifting head and rifle	U
another cannon another eagle another	R
stone angel	U
	-
And the whipped cream of a huge marble flag	V
poured over it all	W
with an expert hand	X
	-
But the candied much too red cherries	G
were already gobbled up	Y
by the glutton of hearts Amen	Z
	-
	-
I came upon an old zoology textbook	A2
Brehm Volume II Birds	B2
in sweet phrases an account of the life of the starling	N
swallow and thrush Full of mistakes in antiquated	T
Gothic typeface but full of love too Our feathered	C2
friends Migrate from us to warmer climes	D2
Nest speckled egg soft plumage nightingale	E2
stork The harbirngers of spring The robin	B
red breasted	T
	-
Year of publication Germany	F2
on the eve of the war that was to be	F2
the eve of all my wars	G2
My good friend who died in my arms in	H2
his blood	T
on the sands of Ashdod June	I2
	-
Oh my friend	J2
red breasted	T
	-
	-
Dicky was hit	K2
Like the water tower at Yad Mordekhai	L2
Hit A hole in the belly Everything	N
came flooding out	M2
	-
But he has remained standing like that	N2
in the landscape of my memory	F2
like the water tower at Yad Mordekhai	L2
	-
He fell not far from there	O2
a little to the north near Houlayqat	N2
	-
	-
Is all of this	P2
sorrow I don't know	Q2
I stood in the cemetery dressed in	H2
the camouflage clothes of a living man brown pants	R2
and a shirt yellow as the sun	B
	-
Cemeteries are cheap they don't ask for much	S2
Even the wastebaskets are small made for holding	N
tissue paper	R
that wrapped flowers from the store	T2
Cemeteries are a polite and disciplined thing	N
I Shall never forget you in French	U2
on a little ceramic plaque	V2
I don't know who it is that won't ever forget	N2
he's more anonymous than the one who died	N2
	-
Is all of this sorrow I guess so	Q2
May ye find consolation in the building	N
of the homeland But how long	W2
can you go on building the homeland	N2
and not fall behind in the terrible	U
three sided race	X2
between consolation and building and death	Y2
	-
Yes all of this is sorrow But leave	Z2
a little love burining always	A3
like the small bulb in the room of a sleeping baby	F2
that gives him a bit of security and quiet love	B3
though he doesn't know what the light is	C3
or where it comes from	D3
	-
	-
Memorial Day for the war dead go tack on	E3
the grief of all your losses	F3
including a woman who left you	G3
to the grief of losing them go mix	H3
one sorrow with another like history	F2
that in its economical way	I
heaps pain and feast and sacrifice	I3
onto a single day for easy reference	J3
	-
Oh sweet world soaked like bread	N2
in sweet milk for the terrible	U
toothless God Behind all this	P2
some great happiness is hiding No use	K3
crying inside and screaming outside	N2
Behind all this some great happiness may	I
be hiding	N
	-
Memorial day Bitter salt dressed up as	L3
a little girl with flowers	M3
Ropes are strung out the whole length of the route	N2
for a joing parade the living and the dead together	R
Children move with the footsteps of someone else's grief	N3
as if picking their way through broken glass	O3
	-
The flautist's mouth will stay pursed for many days	A3
A dead soldier swims among the small heads	P3
with the swimming motions of the dead	N2
with the ancient error the dead have	Q3
about the place of the living water	R
	-
A flag loses contact with reality and flies away	I
A store window decked out with beautiful dresses for women	B
in blue and white And everything	N
in three languages Hebrew Arabic and Death	Y2
	-
A great royal beast has been dying all night long	W2
under the jasmine	B
with a fixed stare at the world	N2
A man whose son died in the war	T2
walks up the street	N2
like a woman with a dead fetus inside her womb	R3
Behind all this some great happiness is hiding	N

Yehuda Amichai

Seven Laments For The War-dead Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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