5434. SKYLINE

SKYLINE

(1967)

This skyline burps me as if I was 4 months old :

all that fissured and fractured fine-ness, me walking

cold streets in the doldrums of a November night.

I am errantly and forever alone, and this is my place 

and my tale of woe. I steal roasted chestnuts from

the vendor cart. I knock down a man for his wallet,

in a frenzy he howls, and I punch. He's on his way

to a Broadway play, no matter, too bad, my hunch.

Broadly, his wife screams out  -  I should but I

didn't. I let it all go instead. Still running. I pored

through dumpsters behind restaurants  -  to find 

better meals than a Kingster would have. Everything

there but the soup and the coffee. I am all that I survey,

and monarch of nothing at all. Myself and three old

grizzly men, cold hands and fingerless gloves, now

standing around a barrel rich with flames, get warm

from a barrel fire to haul us through the night. When

comes the light, the horses and their carts are out 

again. I will be served, and I will have nerve. The

only way to get a job around here  -  these old

untidy westside streets  -  is to take one. I tend

to horses, I sweep the wagon stalls, I refill the

chestnut carts. I rule this beggar's oasis like

now one has ever ruled it before. This

skyline makes me burp.