Other elbows or triangles or rummy cards (assonance and consonance shared in at least a trio of words or syllables) in Lowell’s “Eye and Tooth”:
saw things darkly
flinch / at the flash of the matchlight
a simmer of rot and renewal
in pinpricks
tooth / noosed in a knot to the doorknob
rot on the red roof
sharp-shinned hawk
hawk in the birdbook
No ease for the boy at the keyhole
when the women’s
bodies flashed / in the bathroom
And some of the elbows are eye candy only, contradicting the ear:
tooth / noosed in a knot in the doorknob [the oo]
No ease from the eye [the two e’s in both “ease” and “eye”]
Couldn’t memorize it. So I re-memorized a Charles Wright poem from last year for our recital. You read Lowell silently with your lips moving, but you quote Wright at anything — a shower head, a flock of pigeons, a bad memory. If you say Wright’s stuff in conversation, people might not realize you’re quoting a poem, but they’ll know you’re being arch, anyway.
I’m getting a head start on SoloPoMo, using some material I posted on an obscure WordPress.com blog while I mulled over how to redo my blog. I’ve selected Robert Lowell’s “Eye and Tooth” for my own celebration of SoloPoMo.