General Editor: Ian Lancashire
Representative Poetry Online, edition 6.0, is a web anthology of 4,800 poems in English and French by over 700 poets spanning 1400 years. more
A Crowded Trolley Car
1The rain's cold grains are silver-gray
2Sharp as golden sands,
3A bell is clanging, people sway
4Hanging by their hands.
5Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff,
6Snatch and catch and grope;
7That face is yellow-pale, as if
8The fellow swung from rope.
9Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives,
10Glances strike and glare,
12Dangle by the hair.
13Orchard of the strangest fruits
14Hanging from the skies;
15Brothers, yet insensate brutes
16Who fear each others' eyes.
17One man stands as free men stand
18As if his soul might be
19Brave, unbroken; see his hand
20Nailed to an oaken tree.
Notes
11] Bluebeard's wives: a faery tale about a French lord named Blue beard who secretly killed all his wives and hung them up in a locked room. When his new wife discovered what was in that room, she revealed her husband's atrocities to her sister and brothers, who killed Bluebeard. Back to Line
