Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A STREET CAR SYMPHONY, by ROY ADDISON HELTON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A STREET CAR SYMPHONY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rumble along, over the water
Last Line: Back into town on the spruce street car.
Subject(s): Trolley Cars


Rumble along, over the water
Smooth as glass where the oil spots are;
There by that tug's nose, wide meadows of wonder
Gold like the blood of a splintered star!

Here inside where the straps are swinging
Huddles the freight of a Spruce Street car.

Poke necked spinster, with fumbling eyes,
Flat as a psalm book and ugly and queer;
Blonde in bright taffeta, merry as spring,
With a pearl in each ear;
Young mulatto girl, clean and comely,
All ablaze with a new pink gown, --
White folk's fashions, Gold Coast colors;

Dim red aisles of the broad red town.

Stout bald artist with sandy hair,
Grease marked coat and egg on his mouth;

Oh what a madness of youth in the air
When the wind blows south!

"What are you doing back home, old Kate?
Pretty lonely, I guess, and grey;
Nobody now to meet at the gate
At the end of the day;
You who mothered and smoothed me down,
Buttoned my collars and messed at my tie, --
While the moon rode white on the brow of the wind
And the stars ran high."

Scurry along here! The great folk are frowning.
Frowning? Not they. They are off out of town,
And their solemn old homes, in the broad cloth of twilight,
Like old empty mothers, look hungrily down.

Spoonful of yellow hair
Caught up in a wide red bow,
And the ruddy face of a child
At her noon day glow:
"When father and mother died
I wasn't so pleased at first,
Though I don't know which of the two of them
Was really the worst;
Ma with her weepy smile
Bothering me in my bed,
Or Pa with his drunken snort
And his aching head.
It's good to be all on your own,
Though the lady that works me is slow;
There always are fellows to kid, when a girl
Has a shape and a go;
And Johnnie'll be waiting, I'll bet
On the corner of Seventh and Race,
With a pink in his coat and a shine on his shoes,
And a grin on his face.
He's a looker, and on to the town;
And he knows how I love him all right:
Oh what a strange noise the blood makes in my heart
When I think of tonight."

Young girl student with calm grave eyes:

Life's aflame on the lamp lit street.

"What will the Lord God make of me
When the true man's eyes and my own eyes meet?
Amo, amas, -- now the wind comes warm;
Over the hills now the daisies roam;
Launcelot! Launcelot! When are you coming
To carry me home?"

Gay girls in messalines flitting the pavements;
Loom of tall towers that rise through the dusk;
Faint scent of spring where the trees are budding,
Then garlic and gas and musk.

Drooping pale widow in from the graveyard,
Planning to sell the new tenant their coal;
Figuring how much she'll get for the ice box,
And why God has taken the light from her soul.

Clutter of faded old tenement houses
Warm with the folk of the Ghetto and Rome,
Banked, with sprawled legs, on colonial doorways,
Common and dirty, but making it home.
Women in wigs with the grey hair beneath them,
Wrinkled old grandmas, all shrouded in white,
And a million brown children that dance on the pavements
And stay up all night.

Pious old man in a choker collar
Conning a speech for the Ladies' Aid
On the dangers of dance, and the open Sabbath,
And of calling a spade a spade.

Drag along solemnly! Through these dark byways
Washington strolled for a breath of the south,
And Darthea Penniston ventured, or pretty
Peg Shippen with roses of youth on her mouth.

Chicken coops, Swiss chard, sparrow grass, spinach;
Moon over head and a smoke tossed star;

"End of the line! All out, sir, at Dock Street!"

Back into town on the Spruce Street car.





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