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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  John Rodker

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

London Night

John Rodker

In the Strand
Desperately and disdainfully showed his wares….

Stupid things … laces, studs….

I bought … his look … and … this verse.

Introduction
Still the void turns

And creaks,

And spatters me

With spume of gaunt fatuity …

And again turns

Unceasingly

Till the quiet burns.

The night is full, with laughter in its wings,

And faint wan faces ouched in yearning sky,

Laughter that weals the face of night

And stings. The anguished soul drifts by.

I will not go …

Still the void turns …

And sickening thuds …

Creaking.

Still the quiet burns …

With flame that floods

The secret inner sky,

And yearns to the sound

And the laughter.

I am called,

Hesitant.

Still the void turns.

In the bus
Hum of the town!

Splashes of faces

In garish places

Drive ever down.

In the park
The gaunt trees grope to the night …

The distant magic …

They touch the sky.

The faces linger to the light,

And endlessly drift by,

With shuffle of far feet,

Like leaves that strike

And flicker on the way

With little ripples of dry sound.

The band
Noise of the band … and the wind asleep.

Over the wind I mount on wings,

And swing and gleam and sheer and float.

How chill it is grown .. and how remote the faces …

And thin and very faint … and the wind sings …

Interlude
Shop girl, poor clerk—

Ephemerons .. wing your swift way.

A little love .. it will not mark

The soul unused to day.

So cold, so far away you seem,

Shop girl, poor clerk.

I am the dreamer… Are you the dream?

How the noise mocks me .. and the pain!

And they laugh about me … while the trees unheard …

Though not to one or three …

The water calls in vain.

For she is much more amorous then,

And will not prize her sweets too dear …

For after all we are poor men

And love we may not know;

Though here …

Hyde Park Corner
Stress of the crowd … and the whole of it mute …

Tunics that thrill in the light till you look at his face

With a rush of hate .. and hate for the grace

Of the slavey wooing the brute.

Stress of the crowd!

Picture Palace
Breathless… The giggles cease …

The ruddled alcove …

The clicking of the reel … peace.

Flicker … light.

We thrill to the rush and the clatter …

And spatter the night with our souls …

And steal the soul of the night.

The girl at the box was very sweet …

Manicured nails, and massaged smile, and teeth

Resplendent … Flicker … light.

The rush and the clatter,

With dust of fatuity

Spattered

Out of the void.

Always the street and the giggle of girls,

Women from where?

God, but the night must be full of them …

Anarchist Club
Quiet at last … she here …

The babble of hot voices strangely soothes …

The coffee is black … Avernus’ waters where

The soul’s disquiets flare,

And she… Her face is like half-old ivory,

A something past in its whiteness,

With cheeks a-hollow… Smoking ever she talks

And disdains me … quite …

This is not the place …

Later, perhaps, she’ll not deny me.

And now and then some one will say,

“A bas!”… “Saboter!”

How came we here?

Café
The sybaritic waiter brings us drink …

Thick lips and mottled face …

And gazes at her.

I think his eyes swoon back

To ancient arcadies

In her black, secret eyes.

She is the beauty at the feast …

My friends and their friends flock,

With words well greased.

Oh! but the babble wearies me

And the lights …

And rococo …

Liqueur
One lotus bud swings to the harbor of my soul

And bursts …

And each glad petal … thirsts

Unto all heaven … Far

Insinuating roots …

Wondrous fruits

Creating, becoming of all things,

And God singing!

“My moon, my almond-eyed delight goes from me

And I am old …

I am far older than she is …

And now she laughs at my gray hairs …

Yet may I not stretch out to chasten her lest she rebel.

I will use songs and fair words …

To bring her to me.

Then she shall languish forever

In the prison of my infinite mercy.”

Night, speak me soft—

I have sipped but the rim of “her” cup …

Horror of vastness dripped

From star to star—

And even you

Could not help me.

I am afraid.