UP FROM THE STREET |
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Safety seizes me
more often
as the years go by.
I stay at home
comfortable
with my discomfort
sure because of my unsureness.
Silence owns me,
will not let me go
unless I force myself
out the door -
( now double-locked )
into the elevator
and out upon the street.
The street is beautiful.
Where once I kept
within the shadow
of tall buildings
I now parade in sunlight,
window-shop and stop
for
crossings.
Sometimes even greet
old friends
I never knew had moved
into the neighborhood.
Once I’m on the street
I might meander
two blocks, five
or
anywhere.If I pack a lunch
I might stay within the city
sunrise to the day’s end.
But I remain on guard
showing off my sanity
making sure that passersby
continue in their passing
and so such preconceived a plan
as lunches paper bagged
and ready to be shared
is an indulgence
I cannot afford.
I might as well be home,
trimming sideburns, changing shirts
or studying my own reflection
at the
mirror’s edge
( long ago I learned to shave,
tie ties and comb my hair
without confronting mirrors squarely.)
The street exists for me
as a place of observation.
The pace I practice,
head down striding, straight ahead
is meant to preclude others
from
observing me.
I will not say that dark intentions
fail to lurk inside of me
nor that I keep them in control
and they cannot of themselves
bob freely to the surface
but my forays are not so planned
that I darn undarned underwear
in case the truck or trailers
aim is true
and I’m unmasked forever
by nurse or undertaker.
I am not afraid of streets
no alleyway has been
antagonistic to me.
Highways leading east and west
and all the other variations
have been home.
But my new home is safety.
Not Rome or Omaha or
Oakland,
Paris or the scattered islands
pretending to be Greek.
While I bear no grudge
to Alamo or San Francisco,
their knives are sharpened
waiting not behind the structures
but in the naked or
the peopled paths for me.
But pride or paranoia
does not, will not
keep me from appointed avenues.
What I feel for sidewalks
is akin to how I loved
the railroad right of way
when I was ten and younger.
Perhaps I’ve run too often
in these so different
places
not to know
that what I feel
is more than dreaming.
I am not complaining.
City streets and those
in little towns
have given me so much
that I could build
an airfield or a pyramid
out of all the outside
spaces
I’ve been allowed to occupy.
Rejection, then, runs riot.
Perhaps I’m streetwise
knowing
that.
And while rejection
never seems to walk
toward me
arms spread wide
and smile curled down.
It always waits
in eastern cities.
That’s the game,
taking the chance
looking rejection
in the eye.
Curiously I’m never suspect
of
acceptance.
That has more to do with need
than ego.
I need,
but I am not complaining
that would be disservice
to the worlds I’ve toured and traveled.
Even now,
despite the worry
that I cannot measure up
to what I think I should be
I know a new acquaintance,
friend and maybe more
will seek me out and find me.
If ever I forget
I’ve but to think back
to a nearby yesterday
to know that I’ve been rediscovered
nightly and twice nightly.
Just when finally sure
that I’d been relegated
to the backroom
and the field beyond the clearing.
This winter
after some deliberation
I’ve decided yet again
to give New York another try.
Those years ago on fifty-fifth street
when I sold blood and sometimes me
to keep alive
are not remembered sadly.
They were only different years
full of other kinds of circumstance.
I could count on Sloopy
when the world was turning
but not fast enough
now the needs not filled by others
have been assumed by Nickoli,
who sleeps just underneath my chin
and in the morning purrs me wide-awake.
These days
my voice calls out
from too wide t. v. screens
exhorting others to give blood
and in the space I’ve traveled,
( one block over to the right )
within the intervening years
I’ve been bought and sold
electronically by experts.
Surprisingly
a thirty-fifth floor penthouse
isn’t that much different
from a three flight walk-up.
More public in the elevator, yes
but all my walls are thick.
Best of all
the New York City streets
are little changed
and more a home to me
than stereo and stainless chairs.
Do not be surprised
to see me then
breaking all the rules
I’ve here set down.
I’ll get through the winter
yes I will
bare headed and all smiles
even if I do so
step by step on city streets alone.
Crossing crossings
or waiting for the light
to change
I go on hearing optimistic voices.
Could I
I would not deny
that even in this city’s
coldest cold,
its poorest gray mid-winter night . . .
almost more than anywhere,
once in a while along the way
love’s been good to me.
- From "Love’s Been Good To Me," 1978 |
