Bowery Afternoon
Drab discoloration
Of faces, façades, pawn-shops,
Second-hand clothing,
Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms,
Odors of rancid life…
Deadly uniformity
Of eyes and windows
Alike devoid of light…
Holes wherein life scratches -
Mangy life
Nosing to the gutter's end…
Show-rooms and mimic pillars
Flaunting out of their gaudy vestibules
Bosoms and posturing thighs…
Over all the Elevated
Droning like a bloated fly.
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Fuel
What of the silence of the keys
And silvery hands? The iron sings…
Though bows lie broken on the strings,
The fly-wheels turn eternally…
Bring fuel - drive the fires high…
Throw all this artist-lumber in
And foolish dreams of making things…
(Ten million men are called to die.)
As for the common men apart,
Who sweat to keep their common breath,
And have no hour for books or art -
What dreams have these to hide from death!
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Train Window
Small towns
Crawling out of their green shirts…
Tubercular towns
Coughing a little in the dawn…
And the church…
There is always a church
With its natty spire
And the vestibule—
That's where they whisper:
Tzz-tzz… tzz-tzz… tzz-tzz…
How many codes for a wireless whisper—
And corn flatter than it should be
And those chits of leaves
Gadding with every wind?
Small towns
From Connecticut to Maine:
Tzz-tzz… tzz-tzz…tzz-tzz…
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Iron Wine
The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine,
It is dusky red, like the ebb of poppies,
And purple, like the blood of elderberries.
Surely it is a strong wine - juice distilled of the fierce iron.
I am drunk of its fumes.
I feel its fiery flux
Diffusing, permeating,
Working some strange alchemy…
So that I turn aside from the goodly board,
So that I look askance upon the common cup,
And from the mouths of crucibles
Suck forth the acrid sap.
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
To The Others
I see you, refulgent ones,
Burning so steadily
Like big white arc lights…
There are so many of you.
I like to watch you weaving -
Altogether and with precision
Each his ray -
Your tracery of light,
Making a shining way about America.
I note your infinite reactions -
In glassware
And sequin
And puddles
And bits of jet -
And here and there a diamond…
But you do not yet see me,
Who am a torch blown along the wind,
Flickering to a spark
[...] Read more
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Worn Rose
Where to-day would a dainty buyer
Imbibe your scented juice,
Pale ruin with a heart of fire;
Drain your succulence with her lips,
Grown sapless from much use…
Make minister of her desire
A chalice cup where no bee sips -
Where no wasp wanders in?
Close to her white flesh housed an hour,
One held you… her spent form
Drew on yours for its wasted dower -
What favour could she do you more?
Yet, of all who drink therein,
None know it is the warm
Odorous heart of a ravished flower
Tingles so in her mouth's red core…
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
North Wind
I love you, malcontent
Male wind -
Shaking the pollen from a flower
Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.
Blow on and over my dreams…
Scatter my sick dreams…
Throw your lusty arms about me…
Envelop all my hot body…
Carry me to pine forests -
Great, rough-bearded forests…
Bring me to stark plains and steppes…
I would have the North to-night -
The cold, enduring North.
And if we should meet the Snow,
Whirling in spirals,
And he should blind my eyes…
Ally, you will defend me -
You will hold me close,
[...] Read more
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Nocturne
Indigo bulb of darkness
Punctured by needle lights
Through a fissure of brick canyon shutting out stars,
And a sliver of moon
Spigoting two high windows over the West river….
Boy, I met to-night,
Your eyes are two red-glowing arcs shifting with my vision….
They reflect as in a fading proof
The deadened eyes of a woman,
And your shed virginity,
Light as the withered pod of a sweet pea,
Moist and fragrant
Blows against my soul.
What are you to me, boy,
That I, who have passed so many lights,
Should carry your eyes
Like swinging lanterns?
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
To Larkin
Is it you I see go by the window, Jim Larkin—you not looking
at me nor any one,
And your shadow swaying from East to West?
Strange that you should be walking free—you shut down without light,
And your legs tied up with a knot of iron.
One hundred million men and women go inevitably about their affairs,
In the somnolent way
Of men before a great drunkenness….
They do not see you go by their windows, Jim Larkin,
With your eyes bloody as the sunset
And your shadow gaunt upon the sky…
You, and the like of you, that life
Is crushing for their frantic wines.
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Memory
I remember
The crackle of the palm trees
Over the mooned white roofs of the town…
The shining town…
And the tender fumbling of the surf
On the sulphur-yellow beaches
As we sat… a little apart… in the close-pressing night.
The moon hung above us like a golden mango,
And the moist air clung to our faces,
Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child
And we watched the out-flung sea
Rolling to the purple edge of the world,
Yet ever back upon itself…
As we…
Inadequate night…
And mooned white memory
Of a tropic sea…
How softly it comes up
[...] Read more
poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!