Poet of the Streets
By: Jack Micheline
I walk east of Bleecker the sky is blue on this Sunday evening there 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 power power 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 darkness across a nation skeletons and machinery jaundice, joints and lips of connivers burnt Christmas trees jazz horns and drummers above concrete above whimpering voices above calculators riders with tokens in their hands riders to the sea a nation of cowards cowards wrapped in academic cloth over all in darkness over all who live in deserts over all shells covering over all that are wasted burying 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 silence herring 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 see I 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 traded people dying for nothing people selling their minds and bodies people without courage people with no teeth in drug stores death 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 bananas I 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 houses there 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 ironies a million lost sunsets a poet unconquered with the legacy of Whitman and Lorca a poet unconquered by stone, by glass, by greed, by madness the lights blaze on in the night lights and the cold wind visions above all death cows milked dry, golden crosses the sky blazing with miracles a 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.
What a truly marvellous poem! I just love these lines that are so relevant once again in a world where people are becoming so divided over politics and power and seem to forget that there's more to life than this:
'there 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 power '
- Jack Micheline (1960)
Wonderful. Rooted in life. Thank you.