Autobiography: New York

It is not to be bought for a penny

in the candy store, nor picked

from the bushes in the park. It may be found, perhaps,

in the ashes on the distant lots,

among the rusting cans and Jimpson weeds.

If you wish to eat fish freely,

cucumbers and melons,

you should have stayed in Egypt.

I am alone—

and glad to be alone;

I do not like people who walk about

so late; who walk slowly after midnight

through the leaves fallen on the sidewalks.

I do not like

my own face

in the little mirrors of the slot-machines

before the closed stores.

III

Walking along the highway,

I smell the yellow flowers of a shrub,

watch the starlings on a lawn, perhaps—

but why are all these

speeding away in automobiles,

where are they off to

in such a hurry?

They must be going to hear wise men

and to look at beautiful women,

and I am just a fool

to be loitering here alone.

I like the sound of the street—

but I, apart and alone,

beside an open window

and behind a closed door.

Winter is here indeed; the leaves have long been swept

from the winding walks; trees and ground are brown—

all is in order.

Only the lamps now flourish in the park.

We walk about and talk;

but the troubles of the unsuccessful middle-aged

are so uninteresting!

Now it is cold: where the snow was melting

the walk crackles with black ice beneath my careful steps;

and the snow is old and pitted,

here grey with ashes and there yellow with sand.

The walks lie in the cold shadow

of houses;

pigeons and sparrows are in a hollow

for cold, out of the wind; but here,

where the sunshine pours through a narrow street

upon a little tree, black and naked of every leaf,

the sparrows are in the sun, thick upon the twigs.

Those who in their lives braved the anger of their fellows,

bronze statues now,

with outstretched arm or sword

brave only the weather.

I find myself talking aloud

as I walk;

that is bad.

Only Don Juan would believe

I am in conversation with the

snow-covered statues;

only St. Francis

that I am talking to the sparrows

in the naked bushes,

to the pigeons

in the snow.

VII

The ropes in the wind

slapping the flag-pole

(the flag has been hauled down);

behind the bare tree-tops

the lights of an aeroplane

moving away slowly.

A star or two shining

between factory chimneys;

the street dark and still

because the street-lamp has been broken

and it is cold and late.

VIII

Bright upon the table

for your birthday,

the burning candles will dissolve

in rays

and lumps of wax.

Unlike a skull,

they say politely,

This is you!

I am afraid

because of the foolishness

I have spoken.

I must diet

on silence;

strengthen myself

with quiet.

Where is the wisdom

with which I may be medicined?

I will walk by myself

and cure myself

in the sunshine and the wind.

I do not believe that David killed Goliath.

It must have been—

you will find the name in the list of David’s captains.

But, whoever it was, he was no fool

when he took off the helmet

and put down the sword and the spear and the shield

and said, The weapons you have given me are good,

but they are not mine:

I will fight in my own way

with a couple of pebbles and a sling.

“Shall I go there?” “As you like—

it will not matter; you are not at all important.”

The words stuck to me

like burrs. The path was hidden

under the fallen leaves; and here and there

the stream was choked. Where it forced a way

the ripples flashed a second.

She spoke unkindly but it was the truth:

I shared the sunshine like a leaf, a ripple;

thinking of this, sunned myself

and, for the moment, was content.

XII

There is nobody in the street

of those who crowded about David

to watch me

as I dance before the Lord:

alone in my unimportance

to do as I like.

XIII

Your angry words—each false name

sinks into me, and is added to the heap

beneath. I am still the same:

they are no part of me, which I keep;

but the way I go, and over which I flow.

XIV

The Bridge

In a cloud bones of steel.

God and Messenger

This pavement barren

as the mountain

on which God spoke to Moses—

suddenly in the street

shining against my legs

the bumper of a motor car.

XVI

A beggar stretches out his hand

to touch a fur collar, and strokes it unseen,

stealing its warmth for his finger tips.

XVII

The elevator man, working long hours

for little—whose work is dull and trivial—

must also greet each passenger

pleasantly:

to be so heroic

he wears a uniform.

XVIII

This subway station

with its electric lights, pillars of steel, arches of cement, and trains—

quite an improvement on the caves of the cave-men;

but, look! on this wall

a primitive drawing.

XIX

Subway

People moving, people standing still, crowds

and more crowds; a thousand and ten thousand iron girders

as pillars;

escape!

But how,

shut up in the moving train?

And upstairs, in the street,

the sun is shining as it shines in June.

Poet with Whiskey Bottle and Sailor

There is anguish there, certainly,

and a commotion

in the next room;

shouts of

words and phrases that do not make sentences

and sentences that do not make sense.

I open the door:

ah, the hallway is crowded—

descendants of the three wise men,

now male and female,

come again to worship in a stable.

XXI

The white cat on the lawn,

lying in the sun against the hedge,

lovely to look at—

but this stout gentleman,

who needs a shave badly,

leaning in an arbor hung with purple grapes,

purple grapes all about him,

is unpleasant.

Am I becoming misanthropic?

An atheist?

Why, this might be the god Bacchus!

XXII

The bearded rag-picker

seated among heaps of rags in a basement

sings:

It was born that way;

that is the way it was born—

the way it came out of some body

to stink:

nothing will change it—

neither pity nor kindness.

A paralytic,

hands trembling like water,

listens.

Behind her

the sparrows cluster upon one tree

and leave the others barren;

and the town clock,

that stern accountant,

tells us it is six,

and would persuade us that the night is spent.

XXIII

Cooper Union Library

Men and women with open books before them—

and never turn a page: come

merely for warmth

not light.

XXIV

A row of tenements, windows boarded up;

an empty factory, windows broken;

a hillside of dead leaves, dead weeds,

old newspapers and rusted cans.

Now come a group

in old clothes and broken shoes

who say politely,

The way, sir? If you don’t mind

tell us

the way, please.

XXV

The young fellow walks about

with nothing to do: he has lost his job.

“If I ever get another, I’ll be hard!

You’ve got to be hard

to get on. I’ll be hard, all right,”

he says bitterly. Takes out his cigarettes.

Only four or five left.

Looks at me out of the corner of his eye—

a stranger he has just met; hesitates;

and offers me a cigarette.

XXVI

I am always surprised to meet, after ten or twenty years,

those who were poor and silly

still poor and silly, of course, but alive—

in spite of wars and plagues and panics,

alive and well.

Is it possible

there is a Father in Heaven,

after all?

XXVII

On a Sunday, when the place was closed,

I saw a plump mouse among the cakes in the window:

dear ladies,

who crowd this expensive tea-room,

you must not think that you alone are blessed of God.

XXVIII

A fine fellow, trotting easily without a sound

down the macadam road between the woods,

you heard me,

turned your pointed head,

and we took a long look at each other,

fox and man;

then, without any hurry, you went into the ferns,

and left the road to the automobiles and me—

to the heels and wheels of the citizens.

XXIX

The sun sunks

through the grey heavens—

no brighter than the moon;

from the tower

in single notes

the winter music of the bells.

A stooping Negress walking slowly

through the slowly falling snow.

XXX

In your warm room,

do not judge by that line of clothes

behind the wall of the warehouse—

in the sunshine;

on other roofs

other lines of clothes

turn and twist;

yes, a cold wind is blowing.

The pigeons will not rise

from their roof;

fly to the coop, find the door closed,

and huddle on top,

facing east, away from the wind.

XXXI

The sky is cloudy

but the clouds—

as the long day ends—

are pearl and rose;

spring has come

to the streets,

spring has come to the sky.

Sit still

beside the open window

and let the wind

the gentle wind,

blow in your face;

sit still

and fold your hands—

empty your heart of thoughts,

your mind of dreams.

XXXII

Dawn in the Park

The leaves are solid

in the gloom;

the ledges of rock

in this new world are

unsubstantial.

The sole inhabitants, it seems,

are birds—

until these two,

his arm about her waist.

XXXIII

Stream that a month ago

flowed between banks of snow

and whose grey ripples showed

a sky as grey—

now the stream is seen

clear and as green

as are the willows on its banks,

for it is May:

this stream was turbid, grey,

that now is clear and green—

for it is May!

Your hair be dyed and curled the more,

your dress be gayer than before—

your beauty had its praise,

your anxious eyes now ask it;

but your face will soon be crumpled

like a ball of paper tossed

in the trash-basket,

in the trash-basket.

XXXIV

Holding the stem of the

beauty she had

as if it were still

a rose.

XXXV

Going West

The train leaves New York—leaves the tunnel: yesterday’s snow

in the corners of roofs, in the furrows of ploughed fields,

under the shelter of the naked trees,

on one side of roads and one bank of streams—

wherever the morning sun did not reach it;

turbulent streams running in twenty parallel currents;

slopes showing on top a dark band of naked woods.

Bits of coal rain on the roof of the car,

smoke from the engine is blown in front of the window,

and on the flat land beside the rails

the snow is blown about.

Next morning, across the lots, blocks of brand-new houses;

old wooden houses with back porches facing the tracks;

the railway yard widens and the ground is evenly lined with rails,

and we are in Chicago.

The flat fields on either side covered with dried corn-stalks,

broken a little above the ground and flat on the black earth;

ice in the hollows; shaggy horses

trot away from the train; a colt with lifted hoof

looks at us; towers of steel girders, in an endless row,

carry wires on three pairs of arms across the fields. A beam to

guide planes

flashing in the night.

At last only the morning star is shining;

the plain is covered with sparse yellow grass;

a great herd of cattle—red cattle with white faces and legs—

grazing.

Hills with flat tops; snow in the hollows on the steep sides;

a cement bridge with a bright new railing;

reddish ground; above a ridge of hills

black mountains, sheets of snow on their sides, black mountains

veined with snow.

Low rolling hills covered with sage; neither house nor cattle. By

nightfall it is snowing.

The dark ground is flat to the river—bright with dawn;

beyond rise the mountains blue and purple;

the blue of the sky becomes purple, in which a star is shining.

The desert is white with snow, the sage heaped with it;

the mountains to the north are white. The train turns

south. We are among rocks;

grey rock and red rock; yellow rock and red rock;

cliffs bare of any growth; walls of red rock crumbling;

a mountain covered with boulders, rocks, and stones;

and not a living thing

except a large bird

slowly flying.

The ground beside the roadbed is green with bright grass;

the trees along the muddy river are bright with buds;

trees in the hollow have budded and are green with leaves.

Palms in the streets of a town.

Purple and white flowers on the desert.

White sand in smooth waves.

A gravel plain like rippling water.

Single lights; many lights; lights along highways, lights along streets,

and along the streets of Los Angeles.

Copyright Credit: From The Poems of Charles Reznikoff by Charles Reznikoff, edited by Seamus Cooney. Reprinted by permission of Black Sparrow Books, an imprint of David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. Copyright 2005 by Charles Reznikoff.

Source: Poems 1918-1975: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow Press, 1977)