Shadowland (Mar-Aug 1923)

Expressionism in Poetry AN OPPORTUNITY FOR GRIEVING REJECTED By Helene Mullins U-NDER the opaline sky Of a fading summer, I lie, Humming jocund songs. I sing Because you are going to leave me, And I want to keep my mouth Out of the shape for sobbing. . . . I sing, Partly to console myself. And partly to deceive that inquisitive old moon, Slyly peeping from behind yonder Jade-grey hill. Come and listen to me. And you will be deceived Also. . . . oMv THE CHILD WOULD BE OLDER By Djuna Barnes QOLD tears, my brave man? Come, my little garcon, I'll take you to my girl's breast, and sing you a war-song. Where the horses gather, listen to their hoofs strike. What is a pigeon or a scythe within the wheat like? Oh, the single, cool thought that we string in childhood, As clean and as brittle as a small stick of hard-wood, Now it is a massacre, a scandal, or a penchant. I'll cut you down a clear curl, to thicken out your swan-song. -kf WOOLWORTH BUILDING By Friedrich von Falkenburg AFTER all, Thou art not so great. Something of a wonder, yes. But only a wonder of Stone upon stone . . . Stone upon stone. Soon . . . Days . . . months . . . Years . . . centuries . . . ("Time does not matter) Thou wilt crumble . . . Leaving ruin and Worthless debris. I am greater than thou. I, whom thy smallest stone Would crush. I, beside thou, so weak and small. I am greater. Soon . . . Hours . . . days . . . Months . . . years . . . I shall crumble. But I will leave behind Another structure, Which, like myself, Will crumble, Leaving another . • . And on, and on, and on. ... ■fff FABLE BETWEEN TWO BOULDERS By Maxwell Bodenheim LIKE a dream of ugliness Dwarfed between the sternness of two rocks, The brown toad crouched and did not move. His uncomplaining beads of eyes. The flutter of a soul, Stirring within his cold body. Gave bis wrinkled skin The trembling of mysterious messages. Within the caressing shade Between the rocks, he watched the nervous glare Of sunlight giving crystal dignities To blades of grass and stooping flowers. It was another world to him: A vast and splendidly confused Land that held a terrifying light, And brushed its softly tall Colors recklessly against his eyes. Dimly he wondered whether this huge world Might not be death — a blinding punishment For toads whose legs had sprang with sin each night. But while he meditated on the light, A beetle, sleekly black, sped from a crack Within one rock and darted thru the shade, His motion leading to the sun outside. The brown toad gazed upon him, horrified. And hopped to save him from the cruel light. He dropped upon the beetle's back, and stopped, Quivering with heroic attitudes. Then, filled with victory, he leapt away And waited for the beetle to return, Subdued and thankful, to his cleft of rock. Perhaps he still squats there and gazes down Upon the crushed, black mite, and does not know That death has long since taken up his prey. MAN DEAD By Kenneth Fearing TVT1XT door there's happened something strange. It's death has happened, And crepe. (I wonder if he's marveling At the change.) His eyelids, they are cold and tight; But underneath, The pupils of his eyes are up, His eyes are white. For men come dead when stomachs break — (His did, it seems I — Their nerves and tendons cease to jerk, Their hearts to shake. However, sits a dry-eyed sobbing Beside the muteness. She grieves for him all night, with neurons Mightily throbbing. A CANVAS BY KUNIYOSHA By Pierre Loving J^_ TREE is not just a rondured tree But something thinly silhouetted from the world of whimsy In my curious eye. Children are quaintly flat-bodied and bowlegged And a cow ruminant is only a hairy brown angle. A slant-eyed boatman rows a shalloped cockle-shell Up a narrow snaky stream That is tossed most weirdly close And flows carelessly on the sheer toil of the canvas. -ntf! LE BOURGEOIS By Josephine van Dolzen Pease J)EATH, yours are not feet delicate, Demanding soft walking. I see plainly you have trod rough cobbles. You are not possessed of sensitive tastes, And have not disdained to hang white flowers On the latches of stained doors. "V THE WOMAN By Bio De Casseres f^ROWDS encompassed me, Memories bloodless and cold stalked by my side; Fears, abortive things, darkened the coming day. Heavy as one in a dream, I groped; A new grief burst like a rocket within me, And all its sentient stars sought out the heaven I had not guessed was there. Distance, blue as the celestial field, Floated by. I touched its velvet hem, And lo! the rhythm of the days and nights, White and black keys of a great clavichord, And I the player! The days of humble happenings Caught in the mystic overflow Were simple poems of exceeding beauty — The Woman at the Well . . . Ruth gathering the corn . . . And all the women of the world Like classic pictures at their tasks — At last the dream made real, And with a visioning Homer I can cry, These epic days! tfMv YOU GHOSTLY GOSSIPS By John McClure ~¥ 0X1 ghostly gossips with your demonwit, Go, and be damned for it! Small songs are aimless, futile — even so. You say it and you know. Small songs are futile: so are gold and iron (And beauty, and delight) , Diamond and ebonite, The earth and the abysms that environ The earth and sun and comets flame-enfurled. "So is the world." Page Forty-Three