Explore "South State Street: Chicago" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. Rows of blankly box-like buildings / Raise their sodden architecture / Into the poised lyric of the sky. / At their feet, pawn-shops and burlesque theatres / Yawn beneath their livid confetti. / In the pawn-shop windows, violins, / Cut-glass bowls and satchels mildly blink / Upon the mottled turbulence outside, / And sit with that detached assurance / Gripping things inanimate. / Near them, slyly shaded cabarets / Stand in bland and ornate sleep, / And the glassy luridness / Of penny-arcades flays the eyes. / The black crowd clatters like an idiot's wrath.
/ II. Wander with me down this street / Where the spectral night is caught / Like moon-paint on a colourless lane. / On this corner stands a woman / Sleekly, sulkily complacent / Like a tigress nibbling bits of sugar. / At her side, a brawny, white-faced man / Whose fingers waltz upon his checkered suit, / Searches for one face amidst the crowd. / (His smile is like a rambling sword.) / His elbows almost touch a snowy girl / Whose body blooms with cool withdrawal. / From her little nook of peaceful scorn / She casts unseeing eyes upon the crowd. / Near her stands a weary newsboy / With a sullenly elfin face. / The night has leaned too intimately / On the frightened scampering of his soul. / But to this old, staidly patient woman / With her softly wintry eyes, / Night bends down in gentle revelation / Undisturbed by joy or hatred.