LOLA RIDGE: 3 Poems

Lola Ridge
(1873-1941)

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.

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?

LOLA RIDGE POETRY
kempis.nl poetry magazine

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