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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FACES, by LOLA RIDGE Poet's Biography First Line: A late snow beats Last Line: With some ungainly dolls. Alternate Author Name(s): Lawson, David, Mrs. Subject(s): New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple | |||
A late snow beats With cold white fists upon the tenements - Hurriedly drawing blinds and shutters, Like tall old slatterns Pulling aprons about their heads. Lights slanting out of Mott Street Gibber out, Or dribble through bar-room slits, Anonymous shapes Conniving begind shuttered panes Caper and disappear ... Where the Bowery Is throbbing like a fistula Back of her ice-scabbed fronts. Livid faces Glimmer in furtive doorways, Or spill out of the black pockets of alleys, Smears of faces like muddied beads, Making a ghastly rosary The night mumbles over And the snow with its devilish and silken whisper ... Patrolling arcs Blowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line Stalk then as they pass, Silent as though accouched of the darkness, And the wind noses among them, Like a skunk That roots about the heart ... Colder: And the Elevated slams upon the silence Like a ponderous door. Then all is still again, Save for the wind fumbling over The emptily swaying faces - The wind rummaging Like an old Jew ... Faces in glimmering rows ... (No sign of the abject life - Not even a blasphemy ... ) But the spindle legs keep time To a limping rhythm, And the shadows twitch upon the snow Convulsively - As though death played With some ungainly dolls. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...READY FOR THE CANNERY by BERTON BRALEY TRANTER IN AMERICA by AUGUST KLEINZAHLER MEETING YOU AT THE PIERS by KENNETH KOCH FEBRUARY EVENING IN NEW YORK by DENISE LEVERTOV ON 52ND STREET by PHILIP LEVINE THREE POEMS FOR NEW YORK by JOSEPHINE MILES |
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