ANADIPLOSES
Hannes BAJOHR
Endymion sleepeth and the lady fair
Fair damsel, pity me! forgive that I
I am but rightly serv’d. So saying, he
He plucks it, dips its stalk in the water: how How can we part? Elysium! who art thou
Thou art my executioner, and I feel
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in
In time living on into a new share of English promise, some of
of the law, far from being no excuse, is the law, and we’ll see who rakes in
in the eyes of some, preachers and paupers alike, but did it ever occur to them we aren’t
aren’t that numerous. Everybody must vote. Everybody’s vote must be accepted into the
the few extra cents. Besides, I had begun working on something like
like mistletoe and we all go often to a place we are familiar with
with scudding whitecaps that are a mystery and will always remain so, but you could
have have rolled into the fireplace unbidden, and I
I long meanwhile for the confines of any other principality, but can’t abandon
abandon them? But no these are
are seen pacing the square in different directions; sometimes
Sometimes to stimulate interest in other titles we
we can’t stay but a minute, but will see you
You are also asking me questions and I hear you
You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you
You had a father, let your son say so
So either by thy picture or my love
Love is too young to know what conscience is
Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it
It seem’d he flew, the way so easy was
Was quite forgotten, save of us alone
Alone about the dark—Forgive me, sweet
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these
These raven horses, though they foster’d are
Are gone in tender madness, and anon
Anon upon that giant’s arm I’ll be
Be incense-pillow’d every summer night
Night after night, and day by day, until
Until there shone a fabric crystalline
Crystalline brother of the belt of heaven
Heaven shield thee for thine utter loveliness
Fair damsel, pity me! forgive that I
I am but rightly serv’d. So saying, he
He plucks it, dips its stalk in the water: how How can we part? Elysium! who art thou
Thou art my executioner, and I feel
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in
In time living on into a new share of English promise, some of
of the law, far from being no excuse, is the law, and we’ll see who rakes in
in the eyes of some, preachers and paupers alike, but did it ever occur to them we aren’t
aren’t that numerous. Everybody must vote. Everybody’s vote must be accepted into the
the few extra cents. Besides, I had begun working on something like
like mistletoe and we all go often to a place we are familiar with
with scudding whitecaps that are a mystery and will always remain so, but you could
have have rolled into the fireplace unbidden, and I
I long meanwhile for the confines of any other principality, but can’t abandon
abandon them? But no these are
are seen pacing the square in different directions; sometimes
Sometimes to stimulate interest in other titles we
we can’t stay but a minute, but will see you
You are also asking me questions and I hear you
You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you
You had a father, let your son say so
So either by thy picture or my love
Love is too young to know what conscience is
Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it
It seem’d he flew, the way so easy was
Was quite forgotten, save of us alone
Alone about the dark—Forgive me, sweet
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these
These raven horses, though they foster’d are
Are gone in tender madness, and anon
Anon upon that giant’s arm I’ll be
Be incense-pillow’d every summer night
Night after night, and day by day, until
Until there shone a fabric crystalline
Crystalline brother of the belt of heaven
Heaven shield thee for thine utter loveliness
“An anadiplosis is the repetition of the last word of a line of poetry as the first word of the next. For this work, I have run several poems—among them Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself,’ Keats’s ‘Endymion,’ Ashbery’s ‘Flow Chart,’ and Shakespeare’s Sonnets—through a Python script that tries to find the longest chain of anadiplosis that can be built from the source texts. Not all sources in my corpus ended up in the final poem. This is a work in progress, as I try to find longer anadiplosis chains across more texts.” H.B.
Hannes BAJOHR, a Berliner in Brooklyn, writes digital literature as part of the artist collective 0x0a.