Explore "Foundry Workers" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ Brown faces twisted back / Into an ecstasy of tight resistance; / Eyes that are huge sweat drops / Unheeded by the struggle underneath them -- / Throughout the night you stagger under walls / Where life is squeezed to squealing bitterness. / Beneath your heaving flash of limbs / Your thoughts are smashed to a dejected trance / And you are swept, like empty mites, / Into a glistening frenzy of motion. / Yet, on a Sunday afternoon / I have seen you straightening your backs with slow smiles; / Walking through the streets / And patiently groping for lost outlines. / Your lips were placid bruises / Almost fearing to relax, / And often out upon some green / Your legs swung themselves into long lost shapes.
/ Perhaps upon your death-beds / You will lift your hands, with a wraith of grace, / Showing life a last, weak curve / Of the rhythm he could not kill.