"The Self sounds like a guy raking leaves / Off his walk. It sounds like the scrape of the rake. / The soul is just a story the scraping tells."
— Levis, Larry Patrick (1946-1996)
Work Title
Place of Publication
Pittsburgh
Publisher
University of Pittsburgh Press
Date
1985
Metaphor
"The Self sounds like a guy raking leaves / Off his walk. It sounds like the scrape of the rake. / The soul is just a story the scraping tells."
Metaphor in Context
The Self sounds like a guy raking leaves
Off his walk. It sounds like the scrape of the rake.
The soul is just a story the scraping tells.
The Self has no story. It is a sound. It scrapes
Against all things. He lets the rake do all
The talking now, the raked walk keeps the stars
From blowing out in the night sky
Above his house. It isn't music that he hears:
The sore screech of the wheel in the addict's voice,
Who, having kicked it, becomes the quiet shape
The shadow of his body makes. A rhythm
Only, 2/4 time, without a melody, the flesh
A lighter gray around the scar the stitches left.
Sore screech of the wheel that never rests,
Thin girl at her loom. Thin girl at her loom.
Off his walk. It sounds like the scrape of the rake.
The soul is just a story the scraping tells.
The Self has no story. It is a sound. It scrapes
Against all things. He lets the rake do all
The talking now, the raked walk keeps the stars
From blowing out in the night sky
Above his house. It isn't music that he hears:
The sore screech of the wheel in the addict's voice,
Who, having kicked it, becomes the quiet shape
The shadow of his body makes. A rhythm
Only, 2/4 time, without a melody, the flesh
A lighter gray around the scar the stitches left.
Sore screech of the wheel that never rests,
Thin girl at her loom. Thin girl at her loom.
Categories
Provenance
Reading Kathleen Graber's "Poet of The The: The Darkening Trapeze by Larry Levis" at LARB
Citation
Larry Levis, "The Space," from Winter Stars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985).
Date of Entry
07/25/2016
