I walk east of Bleecker
the sky is blue
on this Sunday eveningthere is something deeper than the earth
there is something deeper than the stone cities
there is something deeper than our existence
than all the robes of powerpower and the night bleeding gutters with crutches
power and the night and the neon vibrating
the night and thirty moons and sharpies
the night and the railroad yards gleaming
the night and the sky
the night and billboards and darknessacross a nation skeletons and machinery
jaundice, joints and lips of connivers
burnt Christmass trees
jazz horns and drummersabove concrete
above whimpering voices
above calculators
riders with tokens in their hands
riders to the seaa nation of cowards
cowards wrapped in academic clothover all in darkness
over all who live in deserts
over all shells covering
over all that are wastedburying all in nothingness
burying all that is soul
burying all with layers of armour
burying herds with still voices
burying all in the nowhere of silenceherring and fish in cans
turkey and chicken in cans
humans in cells of unknowing
there is more to life than the lights of savage civilizations
there is more to life than all the words spoken
there is more to life than the eye can seeI see the sun of angels
hemp and sugar and wheat
blood and sinew within the flesh
ticker tapes, grey hair, jowls on faces
dollars and gods and people sold and tradedpeople dying for nothing
people selling their minds and bodies
people without courage
people with no teeth in drug storesdeath loaded with goods
givers of death and more death
cranes and deep hookers
cutting shears for the young
newspapers stunting the mind
dollars the spoiler of ships of bananasI see your faces as I stroll through the cities
the wind touching the faces of whores
the vision of poets encompassing all
song of children outside the brick housesthere is nothing deeper than life and the livers of life
mankind raped in the bank vaults of steel
dead soldiers, battlefields surrounded by iron and ironiesa million lost sunsets
a poet unconquered with the legacy of Whitman and Lorca
a poet unconquered by stone, by glass, by greed, by madnessthe lights blaze on in the night
lights and the cold wind
visions above all death
cows milked dry, golden crosses
the sky blazing with miraclesa poet walks in the cold wind
his head raised humble and unafraid
death around him filled with waste and banners
death all around him
walking alone with birds above the canoe shaped moons
sounds are heard and the sky glows in darkness.
January 31, 1960, East Bleecker. This poem turned the tide of my death, written on First Avenue off the Bowery. In an alley of great souls.
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