[Skip Navigation]

Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Bowery Afternoon

Lola Ridge

Drab discoloration
Of faces, façades, pawn-shops,
Second-hand clothing,
Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms,
Odors of rancid life…

Deadly uniformity
Of eyes and windows
Alike devoid of light…
Holes wherein life scratches—
Mangy life
Nosing to the gutter’s end…

Show-rooms and mimic pillars
Flaunting out of their gaudy vestibules
Bosoms and posturing thighs…

Over all the Elevated
Droning like a bloated fly.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Ghetto and Other Poems | 1918
Add Keyword Tags

Separate each tag with a space. You may add as many tags as you'd like to each poem.

What are tags?
Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

More Info

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any Internet device.