162 City poems

1. Consider the tragic fortitude of mannikins, the courage it takes under casual poses to do nothing interminably each day. To face unflinching (through sunlit glass that bars them from it) the rushing surf of life within reach where they must stand marooned on their islands’ plastic turf, and not to cry out: more heroic than those Romans the lava rain stunned to statues—misshaped by the panic that twisted their limbs, glazed with their pain in black rock—friezes of agony. You would never know, from the relaxed swivel of this woman’s wrist as she completes a backhand with her racket, that she will never take another swing, or from her smile that she has stood balanced here on one foot all summer like one of Dante’s damned, and not cracked. 2. ‘Cracked’ is my father’s word for ‘crazy,’ as in ‘You’d have to be cracked to pay that much for a pair of shoes.’ He’s not crazy, but he forgets, and today as we pay out his visit’s hours strolling on Bloor, he thinks up the same questions again minutes after he’s nodded and smiled at answers to them. Looking for things to look at and not think, I focus on another grove of mummers: headless, their necks poke out like worms from the smartly turned-over collars of turtlenecks and jackets. You can tell they’ve also lost their arms from the way the sleeves plummet slackly off their shoulders—although they, ashamed to show the mutilation, act cool and tuck the cuffs into their pockets. I look at my father—hands trembling, head crazed like china with minute cracks through which years exit invisibly— and must remind myself his show is kinder, the long-running comedy where he’s played every part, from fresh-faced mooning lover to child-duped parent to doddering senex: still free now (while heart and limbs play their duet) to do a walk-on, ad lib, bow out. He sweats a little in the sunshine. Summer stock, lacking the tragic poise that freezes these actors in their scene, we move on towards a shadier place.

The city at 3 a.m. is an ungodly mask the approaching day hides behind & from, the coyote nosing forth, the muscles of something ahead, & a fiery blaze of eighteen-wheelers zoom out of the curved night trees, along the rim of absolute chance. A question hangs in the oily air. She knows he will follow her scent left in the poisoned grass & buzz of chainsaws, if he can unweave a circle of traps around the subdivision. For a breathy moment, she stops on the world’s edge, & then quick as that masters the stars & again slips the noose & darts straight between sedans & SUVs. Don’t try to hide from her kind of blues or the dead nomads who walked trails now paved by wanderlust, an epoch somewhere between tamed & wild. If it were Monday instead of Sunday the outcome may be different, but she’s now in Central Park searching for a Seneca village among painted stones & shrubs, where she’s never been, & lucky she hasn’t forgotten how to jig & kill her way home.

1 Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. 2 The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day, The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme, The similitudes of the past and those of the future, The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river, The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away, The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them, The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others. Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, Others will see the islands large and small; Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. 3 It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not, I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d, Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried, Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d. I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old, Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow, Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south, Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water, Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward, Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving, Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me, Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor, The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars, The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants, The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses, The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels, The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks, On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter, On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night, Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets. 4 These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river, The men and women I saw were all near to me, Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them, (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.) 5 What is it then between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not, I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it, I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me, In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me, In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me, I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution, I too had receiv’d identity by my body, That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body. 6 It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw its patches down upon me also, The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious, My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, I am he who knew what it was to be evil, I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d, Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak, Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant, The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting, Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting, Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest, Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing, Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat, Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word, Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping, Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like, Or as small as we like, or both great and small. 7 Closer yet I approach you, What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance, I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born. Who was to know what should come home to me? Who knows but I am enjoying this? Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me? 8 Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm’d Manhattan? River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide? The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter? What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach? What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face? Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you? We understand then do we not? What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted? What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not? 9 Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me! Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly! Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name! Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress! Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it! Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you; Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current; Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air; Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you! Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sunlit water! Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters! Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset! Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses! Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung out divinest aromas, Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers, Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers, We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward, Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us, We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us, We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also, You furnish your parts toward eternity, Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

Squinting through eye-slits in our balaclavas, we lurch across Washington Square Park hunched against the wind, two hooded figures caught in the monochrome, carrying sacks of fruit, as we’ve done for years. The frosted, starch- stiff sycamores make a lean Christmas tree seem to bulk larger, tilted under the arch and still lit in three colors. Once in January, we found a feather here and stuffed the quill in twigs to recall that jay. The musical fountain is here, its water gone, a limestone circle now. Though rap succeeds the bluegrass strains we’ve played in it, new praise evokes old sounds. White branches mimic visions of past storms; some say they’ve heard ghosts moan above this ground, once a potter’s field. No two stones are the same, of course: the drums, the tawny pears we hold, are old masks for new things. Still, in a world where fretted houses with façades are leveled for condominiums, not much has altered here. At least it’s faithful to imagined views. And, after all, we know the sycamore will screen the sky in a receding wind. Now, trekking home through grit that’s mounting higher, faces upturned to test the whirling snow, in new masks, we whistle to make breath-clouds form and disappear, and form again, and O, my love, there’s sun in the crook of your arm.

The rain’s cold grains are silver-gray Sharp as golden sands, A bell is clanging, people sway Hanging by their hands. Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff, Snatch and catch and grope; That face is yellow-pale, as if The fellow swung from rope. Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives, Glances strike and glare, Fingers tangle, Bluebeard’s wives Dangle by the hair. Orchard of the strangest fruits Hanging from the skies; Brothers, yet insensate brutes Who fear each others’ eyes. One man stands as free men stand As if his soul might be Brave, unbroken; see his hand Nailed to an oaken tree.

Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders: They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger. And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities; Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, breaking, rebuilding, Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing! Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

chicago: city of ice-cold wind — elbow city of the rectangular block, where bigger thomas choked mary dalton in a drunken stupor on cottage grove, that great avenue divider between the haves & have-nots, where my uncle sydney fled after escaping an alabama chain gang a quarter after midnight &, consequently, cleaved the tennessee river (shackles & all) into another state of freedom. chicago: home of the case pocketknife, the nickel-plated snub nose, the banana-suit wearer, gold tooth & all. they migrated from alabama red dirt, from arkansas cotton fields bowlegged & pigeon-toed, & if you’ve ever resided on the west side, then you might as well been living in lil’ mississippi: natchez, vicksburg, grenada, yazoo city, booneville. chicago: home of the winding el, the circling loop, the midnight cruise down lake shore from hyde park straight to buddy guy’s 
legends; all them blues in one locale. the one-night stands the city gives you — the identity it injects then sucks from your marrow; the lives gunned down. chicago: where gwendolyn brooks scribed In the Mecca featuring 
pepita, our tragic protagonist: assaulted, murdered & forgotten by blue lives matter in ’68 & today nothing has changed. chicago: come sit in the corrupted light.

Trying to find my roost one lidded, late afternoon, the consolation of color worked up like neediness, like craving chocolate, I’m at Art Institute favorites: Velasquez’s “Servant,” her bashful attention fixed to place things just right, Beckmann’s “Self-Portrait,” whose fishy fingers seem never to do a day’s work, the great stone lions outside monumentally pissed by jumbo wreaths and ribbons municipal good cheer yoked around their heads. Mealy mist. Furred air. I walk north across the river, Christmas lights crushed on skyscraper glass, bling stringing Michigan Ave., sunlight’s last-gasp sighing through the artless fog. Vague fatigued promise hangs in the low darkened sky when bunched scrawny starlings rattle up from trees, switchback and snag like tossed rags dressing the bare wintering branches, black-on-black shining, and I’m in a moment more like a fore-moment: from the sidewalk, watching them poised without purpose, I feel lifted inside the common hazards and orders of things when from their stillness, the formal, aimless, not-waiting birds erupt again, clap, elated weather- making wing-clouds changing, smithereened back and forth, now already gone to follow the river’s running course.

I lived here nearly 5 years before I could meet the middle western day with anything approaching Dignity. It’s a place that lets you understand why the Bible is the way it is: Proud people cannot live here. The land’s too flat. Ugly sullen and big it pounds men down past humbleness. They Stoop at 35 possibly cringing from the heavy and terrible sky. In country like this there Can be no God but Jahweh. In the mills and refineries of its south side Chicago passes its natural gas in flames Bouncing like bunsens from stacks a hundred feet high. The stench stabs at your eyeballs. The whole sky green and yellow backdrop for the skeleton steel of a bombed-out town. Remember the movies in grammar school? The goggled men doing strong things in Showers of steel-spark? The dark screen cracking light and the furnace door opening with a Blast of orange like a sunset? Or an orange? It was photographed by a fairy, thrilled as a girl, or a Nazi who wished there were people Behind that door (hence the remote beauty), but Sievers, whose old man spent most of his life in there, Remembers a “nigger in a red T-shirt pissing into the black sand.” It was 5 years until I could afford to recognize the ferocity. Friends helped me. Then I put some Love into my house. Finally I found some quiet lakes and a farm where they let me shoot pheasant. Standing in the boat one night I watched the lake go absolutely flat. Smaller than raindrops, and only Here and there, the feeding rings of fish were visible a hundred yards away — and the Blue Gill caught that afternoon Lifted from its northern lake like a tropical! Jewel at its ear Belly gold so bright you’d swear he had a Light in there. His color faded with his life. A small green fish . . . All things considered, it’s a gentle and undemanding planet, even here. Far gentler Here than any of a dozen other places. The trouble is always and only with what we build on top of it. There’s nobody else to blame. You can’t fix it and you can’t make it go away. It does no good appealing To some ill-invented Thunderer Brooding above some unimaginable crag . . . It’s ours. Right down to the last small hinge it all depends for its existence Only and utterly upon our sufferance. Driving back I saw Chicago rising in its gases and I knew again that never will the Man be made to stand against this pitiless, unparalleled monstrocity. It Snuffles on the beach of its Great Lake like a blind, red, rhinoceros. It’s already running us down. You can’t fix it. You can’t make it go away. I don’t know what you’re going to do about it, But I know what I’m going to do about it. I’m just going to walk away from it. Maybe A small part of it will die if I’m not around feeding it anymore.

(Sonata for an Orchestra) Chicago is an overgrown woman wearing her skyscrapers like a necklace ... Chicago’s blood is kaleidoscopic Chicago’s heart has a hundred auricles *       *       * From the Congo to Chicago is a long trek —as the crow flies