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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sun-Up and Other Poems, by Lola Ridge
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sun-Up and Other Poems
+
+Author: Lola Ridge
+
+Posting Date: August 17, 2012 [EBook #4331]
+Release Date: August, 2003
+First Posted: January 8, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUN-UP AND OTHER POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Catherine Daly
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Sun-Up and Other Poems
+ By Lola Ridge
+
+
+
+ DEDICATION
+ (To my Mother)
+
+ Let me cradle myself back
+ Into the darkness
+ Of the half shapes...
+ Of the cauled beginnings...
+ Let me stir the attar of unused air,
+ Elusive... ironically fragrant
+ As a dead queen's kerchief...
+ Let me blow the dust from off you...
+ Resurrect your breath
+ Lying limp as a fan
+ In a dead queen's hand.
+
+ Thanks is due to THE NEW REPUBLIC, POETRY, A MAGAZINE OF VERSE, PLAY-BOY, and
+ OTHERS for permission to reprint some of these poems.
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+ I
+ SUN UP
+
+ SUN-UP
+
+ II
+ MONOLOGUES
+
+ JAGUAR
+ WILD DUCK
+ THE DREAM
+ ALTITUDE
+ COMRADES
+ NOCTURNE
+ CACTUS SEED
+
+ III
+ WINDOWS
+
+ TIME-STONE
+ TRAIN WINDOW
+ SCANDAL
+ ELECTRICITY
+ SKYSCRAPERS
+ WALL STREET AT NIGHT
+ EAST RIVER
+
+ IV
+ SECRETS
+
+ INTERIM
+ AFTER STORM
+ SECRETS
+ POTPOURRI
+ THAW
+
+ V
+ PORTRAITS
+
+ MOTHER
+ E.S.
+ H.
+ O.F.T.
+ E.A.R.
+
+ VI
+ SONS OF BELIAL
+
+ SONS OF BELIAL
+
+ VII
+ REVEILLE
+
+ IN HARNESS
+ REVEILLE
+ TO ALEXANDER BERKMAN
+ EMMA GOLDMAN
+ AN OLD WORKMAN
+ TO LARKIN
+ WIND RISING IN THE ALLEYS
+
+ SUN-UP
+
+ (Shadows over a cradle...
+ fire-light craning....
+ A hand
+ throws something in the fire
+ and a smaller hand
+ runs into the flame and out again,
+ singed and empty....
+ Shadows
+ settling over a cradle...
+ two hands
+ and a fire.)
+
+ I
+
+ CELIA
+
+ Cherry, cherry,
+ glowing on the hearth,
+ bright red cherry....
+ When you try to pick up cherry
+ Celia's shriek
+ sticks in you like a pin.
+
+ : :
+
+ When God throws hailstones
+ you cuddle in Celia's shawl
+ and press your feet on her belly
+ high up like a stool.
+ When Celia makes umbrella of her hand.
+ Rain falls through
+ big pink spokes of her fingers.
+ When wind blows Celia's gown up off her legs
+ she runs under pillars of the bank--
+ great round pillars of the bank
+ have on white stockings too.
+
+ : :
+
+ Celia says my father
+ will bring me a golden bowl.
+ When I think of my father
+ I cannot see him
+ for the big yellow bowl
+ like the moon with two handles
+ he carries in front of him.
+
+ : :
+
+ Grandpa, grandpa...
+ (Light all about you...
+ ginger... pouring out of green jars...)
+ You don't believe he has gone away and left his great coat...
+ so you pretend... you see his face up in the ceiling.
+ When you clap your hands and cry, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa,
+ Celia crosses herself.
+
+ : :
+
+ It isn't a dream....
+ It comes again and again....
+ You hear ivy crying on steeples
+ the flames haven't caught yet
+ and images screaming
+ when they see red light on the lilies
+ on the stained glass window of St. Joseph.
+ The girl with the black eyes holds you tight,
+ and you run... and run
+ past the wild, wild towers...
+ and trees in the gardens tugging at their feet
+ and little frightened dolls
+ shut up in the shops
+ crying... and crying... because no one stops...
+ you spin like a penny thrown out in the street.
+ Then the man clutches her by the hair....
+ He always clutches her by the hair....
+ His eyes stick out like spears.
+ You see her pulled-back face
+ and her black, black eyes
+ lit up by the glare....
+ Then everything goes out.
+ Please God, don't let me dream any more
+ of the girl with the black, black eyes.
+
+ : :
+
+ Celia's shadow rocks and rocks...
+ and mama's eyes stare out of the pillow
+ as though she had gone away
+ and the night had come in her place
+ as it comes in empty rooms...
+ you can't bear it--
+ the night threshing about
+ and lashing its tail on its sides
+ as bold as a wolf that isn't afraid--
+ and you scream at her face, that is white as a stone on a grave
+ and pull it around to the light,
+ till the night draws backward... the night that walks alone
+ and goes away without end.
+ Mama says, I am cold, Betty, and shivers.
+ Celia tucks the quilt about her feet,
+ but I run for my little red cloak
+ because red is hot like fire.
+
+ : :
+
+ I wish Celia
+ could see the sea climb up on the sky
+ and slide off again...
+ ...Celia saying
+ I'd beg the world with you....
+ Celia... holding on to the cab...
+ hands wrenched away...
+ wind in the masts... like Celia crying....
+ Celia never minded if you slapped her
+ when the comb made your hairs ache,
+ but though you rub your cheek against mama's hand
+ she has not said darling since....
+ Now I will slap her again....
+ I will bite her hand till it bleeds.
+
+ It is cool by the port hole.
+ The wet rags of the wind
+ flap in your face.
+
+ II
+
+ THE ALLEY
+
+ Because you are four years old
+ the candle is all dressed up in a new frill.
+ And stars nod to you through the hole in the curtain,
+ (except the big stiff planets
+ too fat to move about much,)
+ and you curtsey back to the stars
+ when no one is looking.
+ You feel sorry for the poor wooden chair
+ that knows it isn't nice to sit on,
+ and no one is sad but mama.
+ You don't like mama to be sad
+ when you are four years old,
+ so you pretend
+ you like the bitter gold-pale tea--
+ you pretend
+ if you don't drink it up pretty quick
+ a little gold-fish
+ will think it is a pond
+ and come and get born in it.
+
+ : :
+
+ It's hot in our street
+ and the breeze is a dirty little broom
+ that sweeps dust into our room
+ and bits of paper out of the alley.
+ You are not let to play
+ with the children in the alley
+ But you must be very polite--
+ so you pass them and say good day
+ and when they fling banana skins
+ you fling them back again.
+
+ : :
+
+ There is no one to play with
+ and the flies on the window
+ buzz and buzz...
+ ...you can pull out their legs
+ and stick pins in their bodies
+ but still they buzz...
+ and mama says:
+ When Nero was a little boy
+ he caught flies on his mama's window
+ and pulled out their legs
+ and stuck pins in their bodies
+ and nobody loved him.
+ Buzz, blue-bellied flies--
+ buzz, nasty black wheel
+ of mama's machine--
+ you are the biggest fly of all--
+ you have the loudest buzz.
+ I hear you at dawn before the locusts.
+ But I like the picture of the Flood
+ and the little babies getting drowned....
+ If I were there I would save them,
+ but as I can't save them
+ I like to watch them
+ getting drowned.
+
+ : :
+
+ When mama buys of Ling Ho,
+ he smiles very wide
+ and picks her the largest loquots.
+ The greens-man gave her a cabbage
+ and she held it against her black bodice
+ and said what a beautiful green it was
+ and put it on the table
+ as though it had been a flower.
+ But next day we boiled and ate it with salt.
+ It was our dinner.
+
+ : :
+
+ Christmas day
+ I found Janie on my pillow.
+ Janie is made of rubber.
+ Her red and blue jacket won't come off.
+ Christmas dinner was green and white
+ chicken and lettuce and peas
+ and drops of oil on the salad
+ smiley and full of light
+ like the gold on the lady's teeth.
+
+ But mama said politely
+ Thank you, we are dining out.
+ She wouldn't let you take one pea
+ to put in the hole where the whistle was
+ at the back of Janie's head,
+ so Janie should have some dinner
+ So you went to the park with biscuits
+ and black tea in a bottle.
+
+ : :
+
+ You feel very sad
+ when you climb on the fence
+ to watch mama out of sight.
+ The women in the alley
+ poke their heads out of doorways
+ and watch her too.
+ You know her
+ by the way she holds her shoulders
+ till she is only a speck
+ in a chain of specks--
+ till she is swallowed up.
+ But suppose
+ that day after day
+ you were to watch for her face
+ and it didn't come back?
+ Suppose
+ it were to drop out of the string of white faces
+ like the pearl out of my chain
+ I never found again?
+
+ : :
+
+ Mabel minds you while mama is out,
+ she washes while she sings
+ Three blind mice!
+ they all run away from the farmer's wife
+ who cut off their tails
+ with a carving knife--
+ Wind blows out Mabel's sheets,
+ way you blow in a bag before you burst it.
+ Wind has a soapy smell.
+ It's heavier'n sun
+ that lies all over you without any weight
+ and makes you feel happy
+ and crinkly like bubbling water.
+ There's no sun on the empty house--
+ sly-looking house--
+ you can't see in its windows
+ that watch you out of their corners.
+ Perhaps there's a big spider there
+ spinning gray threads over the windows
+ till they look like dead people's faces....
+ Jimmie says:
+ Jimmie's hair is white as a white mouse.
+ His lashes are gold as mama's wedding ring
+ and his mouth feels cool and smooth
+ like a flower wet with rain.
+ You wouldn't believe Jimmie was different...
+ till he showed you....
+
+ : :
+
+ Blind wet sheets
+ flapping on the lines...
+ sun in your eyes,
+ dark gold sun
+ full of little black spots,
+ you have to blink and blink...
+ round eyes of Jimmie....
+ Jimmie's blue jumper...
+ blue shadow of wall...
+ all the world holding still
+ as when a clock stops...
+ streets still... people still...
+ no streets... no people...
+ only sky and wall...
+ sun glaring bright as God
+ down at you and Jimmie...
+ shadow like a purple cloth
+ trailing off the wall...
+
+ Wild wet sheets
+ flapping in the wind...
+ big slippered feet flapping too...
+ big-balloon-face
+ rushing up the alley...
+ houses closing up again...
+ windows looking round...
+ ... Mabel pulls you in the gate and shakes you
+ and tells you not to tell your mama...
+ And you wonder
+ if God has spoiled Jimmie.
+
+ III
+
+ MAMA
+
+ Mama's face
+ is smooth and pale as tea-rose leaves.
+ That ivory oval of aunt Gem
+ you sucked the miniature off
+ had black black hair like mama.
+
+ : :
+
+ Pit-it-ty-pat,
+ Mama walks so fast,
+ street lamps jig
+ without bending a leg...
+ lights in the windows
+ play twinkling tunes
+ on crimson and blue
+ bottles like bubbles
+ big as balloons...
+ Faster and faster...
+ and pink light spurts
+ over cakes doing polkas
+ in little white shirts,
+ with cake-princesses
+ in flounced white skirts.
+
+ Pit-pat--
+ mama walks slower...
+ slower and... slower...
+ Eyes... lamps... stars...
+ acres and acres of stars...
+ bells... and sleepily
+ flapping feet....
+ You're glad mama walks slow.
+ It's nice to be carried along
+ up high near the stars
+ that look at you with a grave, great look.
+
+ : :
+
+ Every night
+ mama sings you to sleep.
+ When she sings, O for the light of thine eyes Dolores,
+ there's a castle on a cliff
+ and the sea roars like lions.
+ It leaps at the castle
+ and the cliff knocks it down
+ but always the sea
+ shakes its flattened head
+ and gets up again.
+ The castle has no roof
+ so the rain spins silvery webs in it,
+ and Dolores' face
+ floats dim and beautiful
+ the way flowers do when they are drowned.
+ Step by white step
+ she goes up the castle stairs,
+ but the stair goes up into the sky
+ and the sky keeps going up too,
+ and none of them ever get there.
+
+ When mama sings Ba ba black sheep,
+ the stars seem to shine through her voice
+ so everything has to be still,
+ and when she has finished singing
+ her song goes up off the earth,
+ higher and higher...
+ till it is only as big as a tiny silver bird
+ with nothing but moonlight around it.
+
+ IV
+
+ BETTY
+
+ You can see the sandhills from our new room.
+ Butterflies
+ live in the sandhills
+ and lizards
+ and centipedes.
+ If you keep very still
+ lizards will think you a stone
+ and run over your lap.
+ Butterflies' liveries
+ are scarlet and black.
+ They drive chariots in air.
+ People in the chariots
+ are pale as dew--
+ you can see right through them--
+ but the chariots
+ are made of gold of the sun.
+ They go up to heaven
+ and never catch fire.
+ There are green centipedes
+ and brown centipedes
+ and black centipedes,
+ because green and brown and black
+ are the colors in hell's flag.
+ Centipedes
+ have hundreds of feet
+ because it is so far from hell
+ to come up for air.
+ Centipedes
+ do not hurry.
+ They are waiting for the last day
+ when they will creep over the false prophets
+ who will have their hands tied.
+
+ : :
+
+ Night calls to the sandhills
+ and gathers them under her.
+ she pushes away cities
+ because their sharp lights
+ hurt her soft breast.
+ Even candles make a sore place
+ when they stick in the night.
+
+ There are things in the sandhills
+ that no one knows about...
+ they come out at dark when the young snakes play
+ and tell each other secrets
+ in the deaf logs.
+
+ Sometimes... before rain...
+ when the stars have gone inside...
+ the night comes close to your window
+ and sniffs at the light....
+ But you must not run away--
+ you must keep your face to the night
+ and walk backward.
+
+ : :
+
+ When it rains
+ and you are pulling off flies' legs...
+ mama lets you play houses
+ with Lizzie and Clara.
+ Because you are the Only One--
+ and because Only Ones have to live alone
+ while sisters stay together,
+ Lizzie and Clara
+ give you the dry house
+ and take the one with the leaking roof.
+
+ Rain like curly hairpins
+ blows on Lizzie and Clara's two heads
+ turned like one head--
+ two mouths
+ spread into one laugh.
+ Lizzie is saying:
+ why don't you want to play--
+ when you feel you'd like to braid
+ the crinkled-silver rain
+ into a shining rope
+ to climb up... and up... and up... into the wet sky
+ and never see any one again.
+
+ Our gate doesn't hang right.
+ It must have pawed at the wind
+ and gotten a kick
+ as the wind passed over.
+ The sitting sky
+ puffs out a gray smoke
+ and the wind makes a red-striped sound
+ blowing out straight,
+ but our gate drags its foot
+ and whines to itself on one hinge.
+
+ : :
+
+ What do you think I've found--
+ two wee knickers of fairy brass,
+ or two gold sovereigns folded up
+ in a bit of green silk,
+ or two gold bugs
+ in little green shirts?
+ If you want to know,
+ you must walk tip-toe
+ so your feet just whisper in the grass--
+ you must carry them careful
+ and very proud,
+ for their stems bleed drops of milk--
+ but Lizzie and Clara shout in glee:
+ Pee-a-bed, pee-a-bed--
+ dandelions!
+ You look in the eyes of grown-up people
+ to see if they feel
+ the way you feel...
+ but they hide inside of themselves,
+ and so you do not find out.
+ Grown-up people say:
+ The stars are bright to-night,
+ but they do not say
+ what you are thinking about stars--
+ not even mama says what you are thinking about stars.
+ This makes you feel very lonely.
+
+ : :
+
+ It's strange about stars....
+ You have to be still when they look at you.
+ They push your song inside of you with their song.
+ Their long silvery rays
+ sink into you and do not hurt.
+ It is good to feel them resting on you
+ like great white birds...
+ and their shining whiteness
+ doesn't burn like the sun--
+ it washes all over you
+ and makes you feel cleaner'n water.
+
+ : :
+
+ My doll Janie has no waist
+ and her body is like a tub with feet on it.
+ Sometimes I beat her
+ but I always kiss her afterwards.
+ When I have kissed all the paint off her body
+ I shall tie a ribbon about it
+ so she shan't look shabby.
+ But it must be blue--
+ it mustn't be pink--
+ pink shows the dirt on her face
+ that won't wash off.
+
+ : :
+
+ I beat Janie
+ and beat her...
+ but still she smiled...
+ so I scratched her between the eyes with a pin.
+ Now she doesn't love me anymore...
+ she scowls... and scowls...
+ though I've begged her to forgive me
+ and poured sugar in the hole at the back of her head.
+
+ : :
+
+ Mama says Janie is a fairy doll
+ and she has forgiven me--
+ that she's gone to the market
+ to buy me some sweets.
+ --Now she's at the door
+ and a little bag tied to her neck--
+ I run to Janie
+ and kiss her all over....
+ Ah... she is still frowning.
+ I let the sweets drop on the floor--
+ mama
+ has told you a lie.
+
+ : :
+
+ Chinaman
+ singing in street:
+ gleen ledd-ish-es, gleen ledd-ish-es--
+ hot sun
+ shining on your face--
+ it must be a new day.
+ But why aren't you happy
+ if it's a new day?
+ Because something has happened...
+ something sad and terrible....
+ Now I remember... it's Janie.
+ Yesterday
+ I took Janie out
+ and tied my handkerchief over her face
+ and put sand in it
+ and threw her into the ditch
+ down in the black water
+ under the dock leaves...
+ and when mama asked me where Janie was
+ I said I had lost her.
+
+ : :
+
+ I'm glad it is night-time
+ so I'll be able to go to sleep
+ and forget all about it....
+ But mama looks at my tongue
+ and says she will give me senna tea.
+ When you smell the tea
+ you shut your eyes tight
+ and pretend not to hear
+ the soft, cool voice of mama
+ that goes over your forehead
+ like a little wind.
+ And then you lie in the dark
+ and stare... and stare...
+ till the faces come...
+ yellow faces with leering eyes
+ drifting in a greeny mist....
+ I wonder
+ if Janie sees faces
+ out there... alone in the dark....
+ I wonder
+ if she has got the handkerchief off
+ or if the water has gone in the hole
+ where the whistle was
+ at the back of her head
+ and drowned her...
+ or if the stars
+ can see her under the dock leaves?
+
+ : :
+
+ It's smoky-blue and still
+ over the red road.
+ Wind must be lying down with its tail under it--
+ doesn't even flick off the flies.
+ And you can hear the silence
+ buzzing in the gum trees,
+ the way the angels buzzed
+ when they flew through the cedars of Lebanon
+ with thin gauze wings
+ you could see through.
+ Nice to hear the silence buzzing--
+ till it comes too close
+ and booms in your ears
+ and presses all over you
+ till you scream....
+ When you scream at the silence
+ it goes to jingling pieces
+ like a silver mirror
+ broken into tiny bits.
+ Perhaps its wings are made of glass--
+ perhaps it lives down in a dark, dark cave
+ and only comes up
+ to warm its wings in the sun....
+ It's cold in the cave--
+ no matter how you cover yourself up.
+ Little girls sit there
+ dressed in white
+ and the dolls in their arms
+ all have white handkerchiefs
+ over their faces.
+ Their shadows cannot play with them...
+ their shadows lie down at their feet...
+ for the little girls sit stiff as stones
+ with their backs to the mouth of the cave
+ where a little light falls off
+ the wings of the silence
+ when it comes down out of the sun.
+
+ : :
+
+ Moon catches the flying fish
+ as they dive in the bay.
+ Flying fish
+ spin over and over
+ slippity-silver
+ into the water.
+ Mom bends over jungles
+ and touches the foreheads of tigers
+ as they pass under openings made by dropped leaves.
+ Tigers stop on the trail of the deer
+ while the moon is on their foreheads--
+ they let the stags go by.
+
+ Moon is shining strangely
+ on the white palings of the fence.
+ Fence keeps very still...
+ most times it moves a little...
+ everything moves a little
+ though you mayn't know it...
+ but now the little fence
+ wouldn't change places with the great cross
+ that stands so stiff and high
+ with its back to the moon.
+ Moon shining strangely
+ on the white palings of the fence,
+ I am shining too
+ but my light is shut inside of me
+ and can't get out.
+
+ : :
+
+ Old house with black windows--
+ blind house begging moonlight
+ to put out the shadows--
+ why do you want so much light?
+ You creak when the wind steps on you--
+ you cough up dust
+ and your beams ache--
+ you know you will soon fall,
+ the moon just pities you!
+ Don't waste yourself moon--
+ come on my bed and play with me.
+ Wrap me up in blue light,
+ you who are cool.
+ I am too hot,
+ I am all alive
+ and the shadows are outside of me.
+
+ : :
+
+ There are different kinds of shadows.
+ The blind ones
+ are the shadows of things.
+ These are the tame shadows--
+ they love to play on the wall with you
+ and follow you about like cats and dogs.
+ Sometimes
+ they hiss at you softly
+ like snakes that do not bite,
+ or swish like women's dresses,
+ but if you poke a candle at them
+ they pull in their heads and disappear.
+
+ But there is a shadow
+ that is not the shadow of a thing...
+ it is a thing itself.
+ When you meet this shadow
+ you must not look at it too long...
+ it grows with your looking at it...
+ till you are all alone
+ with nothing around you...
+ nothing... nothing... nothing...
+ but a shadow
+ with its eyes full of black light.
+
+ : :
+
+ There's a shadow in the corner of the shed,
+ crouching, lying in wait...
+ a black coiled shadow,
+ watching... ready to strike...
+ but I mustn't be afraid of it--
+ I mustn't be afraid of anything.
+ Poor evil shadow,
+ the candle would chase it away
+ only she can't get at it.
+ Do you think that every one hates you,
+ shadow with your back to the wall,
+ afraid to lie down and sleep?
+ But I don't hate you.
+ Even the moon means to be kind.
+ She just treads on you
+ as I'd tread on a worm that I didn't see.
+ Don't be afraid of me, shadow.
+ See--I've no light in my hand--
+ nothing to save myself with--
+ yet I walk right up to you--
+ if you'll let me
+ I'll put my arms around you
+ and stroke you softly.
+ Are you surprised I'd put my arms around you?
+ Is it your black black sorrow
+ that nobody loves you?
+
+ V
+
+ JUDE
+
+ When you tell mama
+ you are going to do something great
+ she looks at you
+ as though you were a window
+ she were trying to see through,
+ and says she hopes you will be good
+ instead of great.
+
+ : :
+
+ When you are five years old
+ you spend the day in the Gardens.
+ The grass is greener than cabbages,
+ and orange lilies
+ stand up very straight
+ and will not curtsey to the sun
+ when the wind tells them.
+ Only pansies bow down very low.
+ Pansies make little purple cushions
+ for queen bees to stand on.
+ Bees
+ have brown silk hair on their bodies.
+ If you are careful
+ they will let you stroke them.
+
+ The trees over the marble man
+ catch up all the sunbeams
+ so the shadows have it their way--
+ the shadows swallow him up
+ like a blue shark.
+ When you scoop a sunbeam up on your palm
+ and offer it to the marble man,
+ he does not notice...
+ he looks into his stone beard.
+ ... When you do something great
+ people give you a stone face,
+ so you do not care any more
+ when the sun throws gold on you
+ through leaf-holes the wind makes
+ in green bushes....
+ This thought makes me very sad.
+
+ : :
+
+ Jude has eyes like tobacco
+ with yellow specks on it
+ and his hair is red as a red orange.
+ Jude and I
+ have made a garden in the field
+ that no one knows about.
+ We creep in and out
+ through a little place
+ where the barbed wire is down.
+ We lie in the long grass
+ and crush dandelions
+ between our two cheeks
+ till the milk comes out on our faces.
+ We hold each other tight
+ and the wind tip-toes all over us
+ and pelts us with thistle-down.
+
+ : :
+
+ Jude isn't afraid of shadows--
+ not even of the ones that have eyes in them.
+ And he can look in the face of the sun
+ without blinking at all.
+ Hush! don't say sun so loud.
+ The sun gets angry when you stare at him.
+ If you peek in his glory-windows
+ he spreads into a great white flame
+ like God out of his Burning Bush...
+ till you put your hands up on your face
+ and tremble like a drop of rain upon a flower
+ that some one throws into the fire...
+ and then
+ the sun makes himself small,
+ the sun swings down out of the sky--
+ littler'n a star,
+ little as a spark
+ little as a fierce red spider
+ on a burning thread...
+ and then
+ the light goes out...
+ shivers into blackened bits....
+ You hold on to a wall that whirls around
+ and the gate is a black hole.
+ You grope your way in like a toad
+ that's blinded by a stone...
+ and mama puts on cold wet rags
+ that get hot soon....
+ Hush! don't let's talk about the sun.
+
+ : :
+
+ When you pass by the ditch where Janie is
+ You run very fast
+ and look at the other side.
+ Jude says Janie did love me
+ only she couldn't forgive me,
+ and that you can love people very much
+ and never, never, never forgive them....
+ so we poked a stick in the bottle-green water.
+ But only weeds came up
+ and an old top with the paint washed off.
+
+ : :
+
+ Jude and I
+ wave to the new moon
+ curled right up like one gold hair
+ on the bald-head sandhill.
+ Mama peeps out the window and smiles.
+ She thinks
+ I am playing with myself...
+ Run, Jude, run with the wind--
+ but hold my hand tight
+ or the wind,
+ looking for some one to play with,
+ will take me away from you!
+ Wind with no one to play with
+ cooees the orange-trees--
+ stay-at-home orange trees,
+ have to nurse oranges,
+ greeny-gold.
+ Wind shouts to the grass--
+ run-away-grass
+ tugs at its roots,
+ but the earth holds tight
+ and the grass falls down
+ and wind boos over it.
+ Wind whistles the bees--
+ bees too busy
+ with taking home stuff out of flowers
+ won't look back--
+ bees always going somewhere.
+ Only Jude and I--
+ heads over shoulders
+ watching all roads at one time--
+ run with the wind,
+ going to nowhere.
+
+ : :
+
+ Jude and I
+ were weeding our garden
+ when we heard his whip--
+ must have been a new whip
+ to cut off dandelion-heads at one swing....
+ He was the kind of boy you knew when you had Celia....
+ with nice clothes on and curls
+ crawling about his collar
+ like little golden slugs,
+ and his man was leading his horse.
+ I wish I hadn't run to meet him....
+ If you hadn't run to meet him
+ he mightn't have trod on your garden and said:
+ Get out of my field you dirty little beggar...
+ he mightn't have struck you with his whip....
+ How the daisies stared....
+ I hate daisies--
+ stupid white faces--
+ skinny necks
+ craning over the grass!
+ I said It is not your field,
+ and he struck me again.
+ But he didn't make me run.
+ His hand
+ smelled of sweet soap...
+ he couldn't shake me off,
+ but his man did....
+ Funny--how the sky fell down
+ and turned over and over
+ like a blue carpet rolling you up,
+ and the grass caught at your face--
+ it couldn't have been spiteful--
+ it must have been saving itself.
+ Hot road... silly wind playing with your hair....
+ The road smelled of horses.
+ I only got up
+ when I heard a dray.
+
+ : :
+
+ Mama has sung ba ba black sheep,
+ and put a chair with a cloth on it
+ between me and the light.
+ But the clock keeps saying:
+ Dirty little beggar,
+ dirty little beggar....
+ Some day
+ I will get that boy.
+ I will pull off his arms and legs
+ and put him in a box
+ and hide the box
+ under the bed....
+ I wonder
+ will he buzz
+ when I take him out to look at his body
+ that will have no arms to whip me?
+
+ Mama drew my cot to the window
+ so I can look at the stars.
+ I will not look at the stars.
+ There is a black chimney
+ throwing up sparks
+ and one tall flame
+ like gold hair in a blaze....
+ I know now
+ what I shall do....
+ I will set fire to him
+ and he will burn up into a tall flame--
+ he will scream into the sky
+ and sparks will fly out of him--
+ he will burn and burn...
+ and his blazing hair
+ shall light up the world.
+
+ : :
+
+ Before he hit me--
+ I knew he was going to--
+ I thought about Jude....
+ I thought if he'd fight...
+ but he shriveled all up...
+ he lay down like a fear.
+
+ Mama never knew about Jude.
+ You always wanted to tell her,
+ but somehow you never did.
+ You were afraid she'd smile
+ and say he wasn't real--
+ that he was only a little dream-boy,
+ because the grass didn't fall down under his feet....
+ He is fading now....
+ He is just lines... like a drawing....
+ You can see mama in between.
+ When she moves
+ she rubs some of him out.
+
+
+ MONOLOGUES
+
+ JAGUAR
+
+ Nasal intonations of light
+ and clicking tongues...
+ publicity of windows
+ stoning me with pent-up cries...
+ smells of abattoirs...
+ smells of long-dead meat.
+
+ Some day-end--
+ while the sand is yet cozy as a blanket
+ off the warm body of a squaw,
+ and the jaguars are out to kill...
+ with a blue-black night coming on
+ and a painted cloud
+ stalking the first star--
+ I shall go alone into the Silence...
+ the coiled Silence...
+ where a cry can run only a little way
+ and waver and dwindle
+ and be lost.
+
+ And there...
+ where tiny antlers clinch and strain
+ as life grapples in a million avid points,
+ and threshing things
+ strike and die,
+ letting their hate live on
+ in the spreading purple of a wound...
+ I too
+ will make covert of a crevice in the night,
+ and turn and watch...
+ nose at the cleft's edge.
+
+ WILD DUCK
+
+ I
+
+ That was a great night we spied upon
+ See-sawing home,
+ Singing a hot sweet song to the super-stars
+ Shuffling off behind the smoke-haze...
+ Fog-horns sentimentalizing on the river...
+ Lights dwindling to shining slits
+ In the wet asphalt...
+ Purring lights... red and green and golden-whiskered...
+ Digging daintily pointed claws in the soft mud...
+ ... But you did not know...
+ As the trains made golden augers
+ Boring in the darkness...
+ How my heart kept racing out along the rails,
+ As a spider runs along a thread
+ And hauls him in again
+ To some drawing point...
+ You did not know
+ How wild ducks' wings
+ Itch at dawn...
+ How at dawn the necks of wild ducks
+ Arch to the sun
+ And new-mown air
+ Trickles sweet in their gullets.
+
+ II
+
+ As water, cleared of the reflection of a bird
+ That has lately flown across it,
+ Yet trembles with the beating of its wings,
+ So my soul... emptied of the known you... utterly...
+ Is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song
+ You might have been....
+ 'Twas a great night...
+ With never a waste look over a shoulder
+ Curved to the crook of the wind...
+ And a great word we threw
+ For memory to play knuckles with...
+ A word the waters of the world have washed,
+ Leaving it stark and without smell...
+ A world that rattles well in emptiness: Good-by.
+
+ THE DREAM
+
+ I have a dream
+ to fill the golden sheath
+ of a remembered day....
+ (Air
+ heavy and massed and blue
+ as the vapor of opium...
+ domes
+ fired in sulphurous mist...
+ sea
+ quiescent as a gray seal...
+ and the emerging sun
+ spurting up gold
+ over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay....)
+ But the day is an up-turned cup
+ and its sun a junk of red iron
+ guttering in sluggish-green water--
+ where shall I pour my dream?
+
+ ALTITUDE
+
+ I wonder
+ how it would be here with you,
+ where the wind
+ that has shaken off its dust in low valleys
+ touches one cleanly,
+ as with a new-washed hand,
+ and pain
+ is as the remote hunger of droning things,
+ and anger
+ but a little silence
+ sinking into the great silence.
+
+ COMRADES
+
+ Life
+ You have been good to me....
+ You have not made yourself too dear
+ to juggle with.
+
+ 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?
+
+ CACTUS SEED
+
+ Radiant notes
+ piercing my narrow-chested room,
+ beating down through my ceiling--
+ smeared with unshapen
+ belly-prints of dreams
+ drifted out of old smokes--
+ trillions of icily
+ peltering notes
+ out of just one canary,
+ all grown to song
+ as a plant to its stalk,
+ from too long craning at a sky-light
+ and a square of second-hand blue.
+
+ Silvery-strident throat--
+ so assiduously serenading my brain,
+ flinching under
+ the glittering hail of your notes--
+ were you not safe behind... rats know what thickness of...
+ plastered wall...
+ I might fathom
+ your golden delirium
+ with throttle of finger and thumb
+ shutting valve of bright song.
+
+ II
+
+ But if... away off... on a fork of grassed earth
+ socketing an inlet reach of blue water...
+ if canaries (do they sing out of cages?)
+ flung such luminous notes,
+ they would sink in the spirit...
+ lie germinal...
+ housed in the soul as a seed in the earth...
+ to break forth at spring with the crocuses into young smiles
+ on the mouth.
+ Or glancing off buoyantly,
+ radiate notes in one key
+ with the sparkle of rain-drops
+ on the petal of a cactus flower
+ focusing the just-out sun.
+
+ Cactus... why cactus?
+ God... God...
+ somewhere... away off...
+ cactus flowers, star-yellow
+ ray out of spiked green,
+ and empties of sky
+ roll you over and over
+ like a mother her baby in long grass.
+ And only the wind scandal-mongers with gum trees,
+ pricking multiple leaves
+ at his amazing story.
+
+
+ WINDOWS
+
+ TIME-STONE
+
+ Hallo, Metropolitan--
+ Ubiquitous windows staring all ways,
+ Red eye notching the darkness.
+ No use to ogle that slip of a moon.
+ This midnight the moon,
+ Playing virgin after all her encounters,
+ Will break another date with you.
+ You fuss an awful lot,
+ You flight of ledger books,
+ Overrun with multiple ant-black figures
+ Dancing on spindle legs
+ An interminable can-can.
+ But I'd rather... like the cats in the alley... count time
+ By the silver whistle of a moonbeam
+ Falling between my stoop-shouldered walls,
+ Than all your tally of the sunsets,
+ Metropolitan, ticking among stars.
+
+ 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...
+
+ SCANDAL
+
+ Aren't there bigger things to talk about
+ Than a window in Greenwich Village
+ And hyacinths sprouting
+ Like little puce poems out of a sick soul?
+ Some cosmic hearsay--
+ As to whom--it can't be Mars! put the moon--that way....
+ Or what winds do to canyons
+ Under the tall stars...
+ Or even
+ How that old roue, Neptune,
+ Cranes over his bald-head moons
+ At the twinkling heel of a sky-scraper.
+
+ ELECTRICITY
+
+ Out of fiery contacts...
+ Rushing auras of steel
+ Touching and whirled apart...
+ Out of the charged phallases
+ Of iron leaping
+ Female and male,
+ Complete, indivisible, one,
+ Fused into light.
+
+ SKYSCRAPERS
+
+ Skyscrapers... remote, unpartisan...
+ Turning neither to the right nor left
+ Your imperturbable fronts....
+ Austerely greeting the sun
+ With one chilly finger of stone....
+ I know your secrets... better than all the policemen
+ like fat blue mullet along the avenues.
+
+ WALL STREET AT NIGHT
+
+ Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness....
+ Lidless windows
+ Glazed with a flashy luster
+ From some little pert cafe chirping up like a sparrow.
+ And down among iron guts
+ Piled silver
+ Throwing gray spatter of light... pale without heat...
+ Like the pallor of dead bodies.
+
+ EAST RIVER
+
+ Dour river
+ Jaded with monotony of lights
+ Diving off mast heads....
+ Lights mad with creating in a river... turning its sullen back...
+ Heave up, river...
+ Vomit back into the darkness your spawn of light....
+ The night will gut what you give her.
+
+
+ SECRETS
+
+ INTERIM
+
+ The earth is motionless
+ And poised in space...
+ A great bird resting in its flight
+ Between the alleys of the stars.
+ It is the wind's hour off....
+ The wind has nestled down among the corn....
+ The two speak privately together,
+ Awaiting the whirr of wings.
+
+ AFTER STORM
+
+ Was there a wind?
+ Tap... tap...
+ Night pads upon the snow
+ with moccasined feet...
+ and it is still... so still...
+ an eagle's feather
+ might fall like a stone.
+ Could there have been a storm...
+ mad-tossing golden mane on the neck of the wind...
+ tearing up the sky...
+ loose-flapping like a tent
+ about the ice-capped stars?
+
+ Cool, sheer and motionless
+ the frosted pines
+ are jeweled with a million flaming points
+ that fling their beauty up in long white sheaves
+ till they catch hands with stars.
+ Could there have been a wind
+ that haled them by the hair....
+ and blinding
+ blue-forked
+ flowers of the lightning
+ in their leaves?
+ Tap... tap...
+ slow-ticking centuries...
+ Soft as bare feet upon the snow...
+ faint... lulling as heard rain
+ upon heaped leaves....
+ Silence
+ builds her wall
+ about a dream impaled.
+
+ SECRETS
+
+ Secrets
+ infesting my half-sleep...
+ did you enter my wound from another wound
+ brushing mine in a crowd...
+ or did I snare you on my sharper edges
+ as a bird flying through cobwebbed trees at sun-up
+ carries off spiders on its wings?
+
+ Secrets,
+ running over my soul without sound,
+ only when dawn comes tip-toeing
+ ushered by a suave wind,
+ and dreams disintegrate
+ like breath shapes in frosty air,
+ I shall overhear you, bare-foot,
+ scatting off into the darkness....
+ I shall know you, secrets
+ by the litter you have left
+ and by your bloody foot-prints.
+
+ POTPOURRI
+
+ Do you remember
+ Honey-melon moon
+ Dripping thick sweet light
+ Where Canal Street saunters off by herself among quiet trees?
+ And the faint decayed patchouli--
+ Fragrance of New Orleans
+ Like a dead tube rose
+ Upheld in the warm air...
+ Miraculously whole.
+
+ THAW
+
+ Blow through me wind
+ As you blow through apple blossoms....
+ Scatter me in shining petals over the passers-by....
+ Joyously I reunite... sway and gather to myself....
+ Sedately I walk by the dancing feet of children--
+ Not knowing I too dance over the cobbled spring.
+ O, but they laugh back at me,
+ (Eyes like daisies smiling wide open),
+ And we both look askance at the snowed-in people
+ Thinking me one of them.
+
+
+ PORTRAITS
+
+ I
+
+ MOTHER
+
+ I
+
+ Your love was like moonlight
+ turning harsh things to beauty,
+ so that little wry souls
+ reflecting each other obliquely
+ as in cracked mirrors...
+ beheld in your luminous spirit
+ their own reflection,
+ transfigured as in a shining stream,
+ and loved you for what they are not.
+
+ You are less an image in my mind
+ than a luster
+ I see you in gleams
+ pale as star-light on a gray wall...
+ evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
+ shimmering in broken water.
+
+ II
+
+ (To E. S.)
+
+ You inevitable,
+ Unwieldy with enormous births,
+ Lying on your back, eyes open, sucking down stars,
+ Or you kissing and picking over fresh deaths...
+ Filth... worms... flowers...
+ Green and succulent pods...
+ Tremulous gestation
+ Of dark water germinal with lilies...
+ All in you from the beginning...
+ Nothing buried or thrown away...
+ Only the moon like a white sheet
+ Spread over the dead you carry.
+
+ III
+
+ (To H.)
+
+ Speeding gull
+ Passing under a cloud
+ Caught on his white back
+ You... drop of crystal rain.
+ Now you gleam softly triumphant
+ Folding immensities of light.
+
+ IV
+
+ (To O. F. T.)
+
+ You have always gotten up after blows
+ And smiled... and shaken off the dust...
+ Only you could not shake the darkness
+ From off the bruised brown of your eyes.
+
+ V
+
+ (To E. A. R.)
+
+ Centuries shall not deflect
+ nor many suns
+ absorb your stream,
+ flowing immune and cold
+ between the banks of snow.
+ Nor any wind
+ carry the dust of cities
+ to your high waters
+ that arise out of the peaks
+ and return again into the mountain
+ and never descend.
+
+ SONS OF BELIAL
+
+ I
+
+ We are old,
+ Old as song.
+ Before Rome was
+ Or Cyrene.
+ Mad nights knew us
+ And old men's wives.
+ We knew who spilled the sacred oil
+ For young-gold harlots of the town....
+ We knew where the peacocks went
+ And the white doe for sacrifice.
+
+ II
+
+ We were the Sons of Belial.
+ One black night
+ Centuries ago
+ We beat at a door
+ In Gilead....
+ We took the Levite's concubine
+ We plucked her hands from off the door....
+ We choked the cry into her throat
+ And stuck the stars among her hair....
+ We glimpsed the madly swaying stars
+ Between the rhythms of her hair
+ And all our mute and separate strings
+ Swelled in a raging symphony....
+ Our blood sang paeans
+ All that night
+ Till dawn fell like a wounded swan
+ Upon the fields of Gilead.
+
+ III
+
+ We are old....
+ Old as song....
+ We are dumb song.
+ (Epics tingled
+ In our blood
+ When we haled Hypatia
+ Over the stones
+ In Alexandria.)
+
+ Could we loose
+ The wild rhythms clinched in us....
+ March in bands of troubadours....
+ We would be of gentle mood.
+ When Christ healed us
+ Who were dumb--
+ When he freed our shut-in song--
+ We strewed green palms
+ At his pale feet...
+ We sang hosannas
+ In Jerusalem.
+ And all our fumbling voices blent
+ In a brief white harmony.
+ (But a mightier song
+ Was in us pent
+ When we nailed Christ
+ To a four-armed tree.)
+
+ IV
+
+ We are young.
+ When we rise up with singing roots,
+ (Warm rains washing
+ Gutters of Berlin
+ Where we stamped Rosa... Luxemburg
+ On a night in spring.)
+ Rhythms skurry in our blood.
+ Little nimble rats of song
+ In our feet run crazily
+ And all is dust... we trample... on.
+
+ Mad nights when we make ritual
+ (Feet running before the sleuth-light...
+ And the smell of burnt flesh
+ By a flame-ringed hut
+ In Missouri,
+ Sweet as on Rome's pyre....)
+ We make ropes do rigadoons
+ With copper feet that jig on air....
+ We are the Mob....
+ Old as song.
+ Tyre knew us
+ And Israel.
+
+
+ REVEILLE
+
+ IN HARNESS
+
+ I
+
+ The foreman's head
+ slowly circling...
+ White rims
+ under yellow disks of eyes....
+ Gold hairs
+ starting out of a blond scowl...
+ Hovering... disappearing... recurring...
+ the foreman's head.
+
+ Droning of power-machines...
+ droning of girl with adenoids...
+ Arms flapping with a fin-like motion
+ under sun burning down through a sky-light like a glass lid.
+ Light skating on the rims of wheels...
+ boring in gimlet points.
+ Needles flickering
+ fierce white threads of light
+ fine as a wasp's sting.
+ Light in sweat-drops brighter than eyes
+ and calico-pallid faces
+ and bodies throwing off smells--
+ and the air a bloated presence pressing on the walls
+ and the silence a compressed scream.
+
+ Allons enfants de la patrie--
+ Electric... piercing... shrill as a fife
+ the voice of a little Russian
+ breaks out of the shivered circle.
+ Another voice rises... another and another
+ leaps like flame to flame.
+ And life--surging, clamorous, swarming like a rabble
+ crazily fluttering ragged petticoats--
+ comes rushing back into torpid eyes
+ like suddenly yielded gates.
+
+ The girl with adenoids
+ rocks on her hams.
+ A torrent of song
+ strains at her throat,
+ gurgles, rushes, gouges her blocked pipes.
+ Her feet beat a wild tattoo--
+ head flung back and pelvis lifting
+ to the white body of the sun.
+ Mates now, these two--
+ goddess and god....
+ Marchons!
+
+ Only the power machines drone
+ with metallic docility
+ under the flaxen head of the foreman
+ poised like an amazed gull.
+
+ II
+
+ To-day
+ little French merchant men
+ with pointed beards
+ and fat American merchant men
+ without any beards
+ drive to a feast of buttered squabs.
+ The band... accoutered and neatly caparisoned...
+ plays the Marseillaise....
+ And I think of a wild stallion... newly caught...
+ flanks yet taut and nostrils spread
+ to the smell of a racing mare,
+ hitched to a grocer's cart.
+
+ REVEILLE
+
+ Come forth, you workers!
+ Let the fires go cold--
+ Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs--
+ Let the iron run wild
+ Like a red bramble on the floors--
+ Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine
+ And the shrapnel lying on the wharves--
+ Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom--
+ Come,
+ With your ashen lives,
+ Your lives like dust in your hands.
+
+ I call upon you, workers.
+ It is not yet light
+ But I beat upon your doors.
+ You say you await the Dawn
+ But I say you are the Dawn.
+ Come, in your irresistible unspent force
+ And make new light upon the mountains.
+
+ You have turned deaf ears to others--
+ Me you shall hear.
+ Out of the mouths of turbines,
+ Out of the turgid throats of engines,
+ Over the whistling steam,
+ You shall hear me shrilly piping.
+ Your mills I shall enter like the wind,
+ And blow upon your hearts,
+ Kindling the slow fire.
+
+ They think they have tamed you, workers--
+ Beaten you to a tool
+ To scoop up hot honor
+ Till it be cool--
+ But out of the passion of the red frontiers
+ A great flower trembles and burns and glows
+ And each of its petals is a people.
+
+ Come forth, you workers--
+ Clinging to your stable
+ And your wisp of warm straw--
+ Let the fires grow cold,
+ Let the iron spill out of the troughs,
+ Let the iron run wild
+ Like a red bramble on the floors....
+
+ As our forefathers stood on the prairies
+ So let us stand in a ring,
+ Let us tear up their prisons like grass
+ And beat them to barricades--
+ Let us meet the fire of their guns
+ With a greater fire,
+ Till the birds shall fly to the mountains
+ For one safe bough.
+
+ TO ALEXANDER BERKMAN
+
+ Can you see me, Sasha?
+ I can see you....
+ A tentacle of the vast dawn is resting on your face
+ that floats as though detached
+ in a sultry and greenish vapor.
+ I cannot reach my hands to you...
+ would not if I could,
+ though I know how warmly yours would close about them.
+ Why?
+ I do not know...
+ I have a sense of shame.
+ Your eyes hurt me... mysterious openings in the gray stone of your face
+ through which your spirit streams out taut as a flag
+ bearing strange symbols to the new dawn.
+
+ If I stay... projected, trembling against these bars filtering
+ emaciated light...
+ will your eyes... that bore their lonely way through mine...
+ stop as at a friendly gate...
+ grow warm... and luminous?
+ ... but I cannot stay... for the smell...
+ I know... how the days pass...
+ The prison squats
+ with granite haunches
+ on the young spring,
+ battened under with its twisting green...
+ and you... socket for every bolt
+ piercing like a driven nail.
+ Eyes stare you through the bars...
+ eyes blank as a graveled yard...
+ and the silence shuffles heavy dice of feet in iron corridors...
+ until the day... that has soiled herself in this black hole
+ to caress the pale mask of your face...
+ withdraws the last wizened ray
+ to wash in the infinite
+ her discolored hands.
+ Can you hear me, Sasha,
+ in your surrounded darkness?
+
+ EMMA GOLDMAN
+
+ How should they appraise you,
+ who walk up close to you
+ as to a mountain,
+ each proclaiming his own eyeful
+ against the other's eyeful.
+
+ Only time
+ standing well off
+ shall measure your circumference and height.
+
+ AN OLD WORKMAN
+
+ Warped... gland-dry...
+ With spine askew
+ And body shrunken into half its space...
+ Well-used as some cracked paving-stone...
+ Bearing on his grimed and pitted front
+ A stamp... as of innumerable feet.
+
+ 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.
+
+ WIND RISING IN THE ALLEYS
+
+ Wind rising in the alleys
+ My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls.
+ You are full of unspent dreams....
+ You are laden with beginnings....
+ There is hope in you... not sweet... acrid as blood in the mouth.
+ Come into my tossing dust
+ Scattering the peace of old deaths,
+ Wind rising in the alleys,
+ Carrying stuff of flame.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sun-Up and Other Poems, by Lola Ridge
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUN-UP AND OTHER POEMS ***
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