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Poem by Lola Ridge
Flotsam
I Crass rays streaming from the vestibules; Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth; High-flung signs Blinking yellow phosphorescent eyes; Girls in black Circling monotonously About the orange lights... Nothing to guess at... Save the darkness above Crouching like a great cat. In the dim-lit square, Where dishevelled trees Tustle with the wind--the wind like a scythe Mowing their last leaves-- Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze-- Pale oval arcs Like ailing virgins, Each out of a halo circumscribed, Pallidly staring... Figures drift upon the benches With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling-- Slovenly figures like untied parcels, And papers wrapped about their knees Huddled one to the other, Cringing to the wind-- The sided wind, Leaving no breach untried... So many and all so still... The fountain slobbering its stone basin Is louder than They-- Flotsam of the five oceans Here on this raft of the world. This old man's head Has found a woman's shoulder. The wind juggles with her shawl That flaps about them like a sail, And splashes her red faded hair Over the salt stubble of his chin. A light foam is on his lips, As though dreams surged in him Breaking and ebbing away... And the bare boughs shuffle above him And the twigs rattle like dice... She--diffused like a broken beetle-- Sprawls without grace, Her face gray as asphalt, Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges... Shadows ply about her mouth-- Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree, That dances above her its dance of dry bones. II A uniformed front, Paunched; A glance like a blow, The swing of an arm, Verved, vigorous; Boot-heels clanking In metallic rhythm; The blows of a baton, Quick, staccato... --There is a rustling along the benches As of dried leaves raked over... And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand, Tucking the displaced paper about his knees. Colder... And a frost under foot, Acid, corroding, Eating through worn bootsoles. Drab forms blur into greenish vapor. Through boughs like cross-bones, Pale arcs flare and shiver Like lilies in a wind. High over Broadway A far-flung sign Glitters in indigo darkness And spurts again rhythmically, Spraying great drops Red as a hemorrhage.
Lola Ridge
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