Nocturne

Lola Ridge 1873 – 1941



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?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
112

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGHGIIJKLBMN
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 569
Words 100
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 17

Lola Ridge

Lola Ridge was an anarchist poet and an influential editor of avant-garde feminist and Marxist publications best remembered for her long poems and poetic sequences She along with other political poets of the early Modernist period has been coming under increasing critical scrutiny at the beginning of the twenty-first century more…

All Lola Ridge poems | Lola Ridge Books

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