Sometimes-- "My Sad Self"--
a poem called "My Sad Self."
1958.
Sometimes when my eyes are red, I
go up on top of the RCA building and gaze
at my world, Manhattan.
My building.
Streets I've done feats in.
Lofts, beds, cold water flats on Fifth Avenue below,
which I also bear in mind.
Its ant cars, little yellow taxis,
men walking the size of specks of wool,
panorama of the bridges, sunrise over Brooklyn machine,
sun go down over New Jersey, where
I was born, in Paterson, where I played with ants,
my later love on 15th Street.
My greater loves of Lower East Side.
My once fabulous amours in the Bronx far away.
Paths crossing in all these hidden streets.
My history is summed up.
My absences and ecstasies in Harlem.
Sun shining down on all I own in one eye blink
to the horizon in my last eternity.
Matter is water.
Sad.
I take the elevator and go down, pondering,
and walk on the pavement, staring into all man's plate
glass.
Faces questioning after who loves.
And stop bemused in front of an automobile shop window,
standing lost in calm thought.
Traffic moving up and down Fifth Avenue blocks
behind me waiting for a moment when--
Time to go home and cook supper and listen to the romantic war
news on the radio.
All movement stops and I walk in the timeless sadness
of existing, tenderness blowing through the buildings.
My fingertips touching reality's face.
My own face streaked with tears in the mirror
of some window at dusk where I have
no desire for bonbons or to own the dresses
or Japanese lampshades of intellectuals.
Confused by the spectacle around me.
Man struggling up the street with packages, newspapers,
ties, beautiful suits, towards his desire.
Man, woman streaming over the pavement.
Red lights clocking hurried watches and movements
at the curb.
And all these streets leading me so cross wise.
Honking, lengthily.
By avenues stalked by high buildings
or crusted into slums through such halting traffic.
Screaming cars and engine so painfully
to this countryside, this graveyard, this stillness.
On death bed or mountain, once seemed
never regained or desired in the mind to come,
where all Manhattan that I've seen must disappear.
[APPLAUSE]