Lola Ridge

I remember The crackle of the palm trees Over the mooned white roofs of the town...

Not your martyrs anointed of heaven - The ages are red where they trod - But the Hunted - the world's bitter leaven -

Where to-day would a dainty buyer Imbibe your scented juice, Pale ruin with a heart of fire;

Was there a wind? Tap... tap... Night pads upon the snow

I wonder how it would be here with you, where the wind

Warped... gland-dry... With spine askew And body shrunken into half its space...

When Art goes bounding, lean, Up hill-tops fired green To pluck a rose for life.

Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel - Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul, So that never again should men be able

Drab discoloration Of faces, fa'ades, pawn-shops, Second-hand clothing,

Light! Innumerable ions of light, Kindling, irradiating,

Pythoness body - arching Over the night like an ecstasy - I feel your coils tightening...

Radiant notes piercing my narrow-chested room, beating down through my ceiling -

Life You have been good to me.... You have not made yourself too dear

Wind, just arisen - (Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars,

I love those spirits That men stand off and point at, Or shudder and hood up their souls -

I would be a torch unto your hand, A lamp upon your forehead, Labor, In the wild darkness before the Dawn

Let me cradle myself back Into the darkness Of the half shapes...

Tender and tremulous green of leaves Turned up by the wind, Twanging among the vines -

Men die... Dreams only change their houses. They cannot be lined up against a wall

Dour river Jaded with monotony of lights Diving off mast heads....

Out of fiery contacts... Rushing auras of steel Touching and whirled apart...

How should they appraise you, who walk up close to you as to a mountain,

A late snow beats With cold white fists upon the tenements - Hurriedly drawing blinds and shutters,

Crass rays streaming from the vestibules; Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth; High-flung signs

I He walked under the shadow of the Hill Where men are fed into the fires

What of the silence of the keys And silvery hands? The iron sings... Though bows lie broken on the strings,

I The foreman's head slowly circling...

The earth is motionless And poised in space... A great bird resting in its flight

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.

Nasal intonations of light and clicking tongues... publicity of windows

Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown... (There's a shout at the door an' a big red light...) Lil' coon baby, mammy is down...

Out of the night you burn, Manhattan, In a vesture of gold - Span of innumerable arcs,

I Your love was like moonlight turning harsh things to beauty,

Indigo bulb of darkness Punctured by needle lights Through a fissure of brick canyon shutting out stars,

I love you, malcontent Male wind - Shaking the pollen from a flower

Old plant of Asia - Mutilated vine Holding earth's leaping sap

Do you remember Honey-melon moon Dripping thick sweet light

Undulant rustlings, Of oncoming silk, Rhythmic, incessant,

Come forth, you workers! Let the fires go cold - Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs -

Aren't there bigger things to talk about Than a window in Greenwich Village And hyacinths sprouting

Secrets infesting my half-sleep... did you enter my wound from another wound

Skyscrapers... remote, unpartisan... Turning neither to the right nor left Your imperturbable fronts....

I We are old, Old as song.

Spires of Grace Church, For you the workers of the world Travailed with the mountains...

A spring wind on the Bowery, Blowing the fluff of night shelters Off bedraggled garments,

I have known only my own shallows - Safe, plumbed places, Where I was wont to preen myself.

(Shadows over a cradle... fire-light craning.... A hand

Blow through me wind As you blow through apple blossoms.... Scatter me in shining petals over the passers-by....

I am of the wind... A wisp of the battering wind... I trail my fingers along the Alps

I have a dream to fill the golden sheath of a remembered day....

I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me... But there was time... And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain, staring into the abyss...

It is dark... so dark, I remember the sun on Chios... It is still... so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean... Ten times we had watched the moon

In a little Hungarian cafe Men and women are drinking Yellow wine in tall goblets.

The old men of the world have made a fire To warm their trembling hands. They poke the young men in.

Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk - Snaring, illuding, concealing, Magically conjuring -

Snow wraiths circle us Like washers of the dead, Flapping their white wet cloths

Bountiful Givers, I look along the years And see the flowers you threw...

I Cool, inaccessible air Is floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights,

They pass through the great iron gates - Men with eyes gravely discerning, Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes

That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron, And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the sunshine floating like cotton-down, And the harsh and terrible screaming,

I Not yet hast Thou sounded Thy clangorous music,

Last night I watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea, Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star,

Censored lies that mimic truth... Censored truth as pale as fear... My heart is like a rousing bell -

The woman with jewels sits in the cafe, Spraying light like a fountain. Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers

Hallo, Metropolitan - Ubiquitous windows staring all ways, Red eye notching the darkness.

Can you see me, Sasha? I can see you.... A tentacle of the vast dawn is resting on your face

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,

Will you feast with me, American People? But what have I that shall seem good to you! On my board are bitter apples

I see you, refulgent ones, Burning so steadily Like big white arc lights...

Small towns Crawling out of their green shirts... Tubercular towns

There is music in the strong Deep-throated bush, Whisperings of song

Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness.... Lidless windows Glazed with a flashy luster

I That was a great night we spied upon See-sawing home,

Wind rising in the alleys My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls. You are full of unspent dreams....