Poems by Lola Ridge

Sorted by title, showing title and first line

I remember
Not your martyrs anointed of heaven -
Where to-day would a dainty buyer
Was there a wind?
I wonder
Warped... gland-dry...
When Art goes bounding, lean,
Oh, God did cunningly, there at Babel -
Drab discoloration
Light!
Pythoness body - arching
Radiant notes
Life
Wind, just arisen -
I love those spirits
I would be a torch unto your hand,
Let me cradle myself back
Tender and tremulous green of leaves
Men die...
Dour river
Out of fiery contacts...
How should they appraise you,
A late snow beats
Crass rays streaming from the vestibules;
I
What of the silence of the keys
I
The earth is motionless
The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine,
Nasal intonations of light
Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown...
Out of the night you burn, Manhattan,
I
Indigo bulb of darkness
I love you, malcontent
Old plant of Asia -
Do you remember
Undulant rustlings,
Come forth, you workers!
Aren't there bigger things to talk about
Secrets
Skyscrapers... remote, unpartisan...
I
Spires of Grace Church,
A spring wind on the Bowery,
I have known only my own shallows -
(Shadows over a cradle...
Blow through me wind
I am of the wind...
I have a dream
I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me...
It is dark... so dark, I remember the sun on Chios...
In a little Hungarian cafe
The old men of the world have made a fire
Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk -
Snow wraiths circle us
Bountiful Givers,
I
They pass through the great iron gates -
That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron,
I
Last night
Censored lies that mimic truth...
The woman with jewels sits in the cafe,
Hallo, Metropolitan -
Can you see me, Sasha?
Is it you I see go by the window, Jim Larkin - you not looking at me nor any one,
Will you feast with me, American People?
I see you, refulgent ones,
Small towns
There is music in the strong
Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness....
I
Wind rising in the alleys