Maxwell Bodenheim Poems

Rows of blankly box-like buildings
Raise their sodden architecture
Into the poised lyric of the sky.
...

Perspiring violence derides
The pathetic collapse of dirt.
An effervescence of noises
...

This red hush toppling over the sky,
Wanders one step toward the stars
And dies in a questioning shiver.
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Grey, drooping-shouldered bushes scrape the edges
Of bending swirls of yellow-white flowers.
So do my thoughts meet the wind-scattered color of you.
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Aimless petal of the wind,
Spinning gently weird circles,
To the flowers underneath
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Like a vivid hyperbole,
The sun plunged into April's freshness,
And struck its sparkling madness
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The brass band plays upon your decks,
Like a sturdy harlot aping mirth,
And people in starched shields
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A sky that has never known sun, moon, or stars,
A sky that is like a dead, kind face
Would have the color of your eyes,
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I walked upon a hill
And the wind, made solemnly drunk with your presence,
Reeled against me.
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Shaking nights, noons tame and dust-quiet, and wind-broken days
Were hands modelling your face.
Yet people glanced at you and pass on.
...