Explore "Broadway" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ With sardonic futility / The multi-coloured crowd, / Hurried by fervent sensuality, / Flees from something carried on its back. / Endlessly subdued, a sound / Pours up from the crowd, / Like some one ever gasping for breath / To utter releasing words. / Through the artificial valley / Made by gaudy evasions, / The stifled crowd files up and down, / Stabbing thought with rapid noises. / Women strutting dulcetly, / Embroider their unappeased hungers, / And men stumble toward a flitting opiate. / Sometimes a moment breaks apart / And one can hear the knuckles / Of children rapping on towering doors: / Rapping on the highway / Where civilization parades / Its frozen amiabilities!