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Sun-Up and Other Poems (Lola Ridge)
Sun-Up and Other Poems (Lola Ridge)
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SUN-UP
AND OTHER POEMS
SUN-UP
AND OTHER POEMS
SUN-UP
AND OTHER POEMS
BY
LOLA RIDGE
r
DEDICATION
(To my Mother)
Let me cradle myself back
Into the darkness
Of the half shapes . . .
^. /\
,
Of the cauled beginnings . . . \
I
SUN UP
PAGE
SUN-UP l
II
JAGUAR
.............
MONOLOGUES
39
....
WILD DUCK 41
THE DREAM 43
ALTITUDE . . . * - -44
...........
COMRADES 45
NOCTURNE 46
CACTUS SEED 47
III
......
WINDOWS
TIME-STONE . . . . 51
TRAIN WINDOW 52
53
...
SCANDAL
. . ; 54
ELECTRICITY . . .
....
55
....*
SKYSCRAPERS . . . . -. .
EAST RIVER ; 57
IV
SECRETS
PAGE
INTERIM * 61
AFTER STORM 62
SECRETS . . . . . ./ ; 64
POTPOURRI 65
THAW . . 66
V
PORTRAITS
..........
MOTHER 69
E. S 70
......
H 71
0. F. T 72
E. A. R . . 73
VI
SONS OF BELIAL
SONS OF BELIAL . ... . . . . . . .77
VII
REVEILLE
IN HARNESS . . * : * h . . . . . . .83
REVEILLE % . . . . . . .86
To ALEXANDER BERKMAN 88
.....
EMMA GOLDMAN . . * * ; . . . . . .90
AN OLD WORKMAN . k k : . h . , . . .91
To LARKIN . . * 4 . . .92
WIND RISING IN THE ALLEYS . 93
SUN-UP
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.
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 . . .
[4]
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 . . .
I wish Celia
could see the sea climb up on the sky
and slide off again . . .
. . .Celia saying
Pd beg the world with you. . . .
Celia . . . holding on to the cab . . .
Now I will
slap her again. . . .
I will bite her hand till it bleeds.
[6]
II
THE ALLEY
[7]
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.
[8]
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.
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.
[9]
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.
[10]
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 big spider there
s a
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.
[12]
Ill
MAMA
Mama s face
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 . . .
Every night
mama sings you to sleep.
When she sings, 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
it,
[14]
but the stair goes up into the sky
and the sky keeps going up too,
so none of them ever get there.
[15]
IV
BETTY
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.
[18]
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.
[19]
You look in the eyes of grown-up people
to see if they feel
the way you feel . . .
[20]
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 any more . . .
[21]
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 . . .
I m glad it is night-time
so I ll be able to go to sleep
[22]
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
[24]
where a little light falls off
the wings of the silence
when it comes down out of the sun.
Flying fish
spin over and over
slippity-silver
into the water.
Moon 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.
[25]
I am shining too
but my light is shut inside of me
and can t get out.
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 . . .
but a shadow
with its eyes full of black light.
[27]
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?
[28]
JUDE
and then
the sun makes himself small,
the sun swings down out of the sky
littler n a star,
little as a spark
and then
the light goes out . . .
[31]
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.
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 . . .
[32]
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 Jucle 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
[33]
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 . . .
[34]
Hot road . . . silly wind playing with your hair.
The road smelled of horses.
I only got up
when I heard a dray.
[35]
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.
[36]
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 . . .
[40]
WILD DUCK
I
II
As water, cleared of the reflection of a bird
it,
That has lately flown across
Yet trembles with the beating of its wings,
So my soul . . . emptied of the known you ... ut
terly . .
.
Good-by.
[42]
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. . . .)
[43]
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.
[44]
COMRADES
LIFE
You have been good to me. . . .
You have not made yourself too dear
to juggle with.
[45]
NOCTURNE
[46]
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.
[47]
II
[48]
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
[51]
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. ,
[52]
SCANDAL
[53]
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.
[54]
SKYSCRAPERS
SKYSCRAPERS . . . remote, unpartisan . . .
[55]
WALL STREET AT NIGHT
[56]
EAST RIVER
DOUR river
Jaded with monotony of lights
Diving off mast heads. . . .
Lights mad with creating in a river . . . turning its sul
len back. . . .
[57]
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. . . .
[61]
AFTER STORM
WAS there a wind?
Tap . . . tap. . . .
Silence
builds her wall
about a dream impaled.
[63]
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. . . .
[64]
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
Miraculously whole.
[65]
THAW
BLOW through me wind
As you blow through apple blossoms. . . .
Scatter me in shining petals over the passers-by. . .
[66]
PORTRAITS
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.
[69]
II
(To E. S.y
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 . . .
[70]
Ill
(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.
[71]
IV
(To 0. F. T.)
[72]
(To E. A. R.)
[73]
SONS OF BELIAL
WE are old,
Old as song.
Before Rome was
Or Gyrene.
Mad nights knew us
And old men s wives.
II
We were the sons of Belial.
One black night
Centuries ago
We beat at a door
In Gilead. . . .
Ill
We are old. . . .
Old as song. . . .
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.
[78]
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.
[79]
We are the Mob.
Old as song.
Tyre knew us
And Israel.
[80]
REVEILLE
IN HARNESS
slowly circling . . .
White rims
under yellow disks of eyes. . . .
Gold hairs
starting out of a blond scowl . . .
Droning of power-machines . . .
Marchons!
[85]
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 themill 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.
[87]
TO ALEXANDER BERKMAN
[89]
EMMA GOLDMAN
How should they appraise you,
who walk up close to you
as to a mountain,
Only time
standing well off
shall measure your circumference
and height.
[90]
AN OLD WORKMAN
WARPED . . . gland-dry . . .
With spine askew
And body shrunken into half its space .
[91]
TO LARKIN
[92]
WIND RISING IN THE ALLEYS
[93]
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