Early-winter sunslant on Washington Square earth, trees
and benches and on New Yorkers of every possible
description co-existing on the benches and on guitars
at the Fountain and on dogs playing chase the pigeons
and on squirrels and sparrows and on dark Jewish NYU
girl students walking to class, deep memories of
Sinai, Galilee, Canaan, the wedding feast and the
dancing
Blackman big, terrible, in boots, flowing pants, headband
and Algerian turban, striding through the Square like
the emperor's champion wrestler, I wish I could follow
and watch him an hour and O to hear his-story, that
would be something, but I dare not (I saw him centuries
ago in streets of Algiers, Rome, Kabul, Athens, Siam,
Congo, Cairo, Constantinople)
One black squirrel among the grays in the Square, if I
stay in this city I'll come and feed him!
Leaves blowing in November wind
Madman shows me his feet, filthy stockings, no shoes, and
asks where he can take a bath, no money, and I directing
him to the Square's toilets, no place else for him, alas,
who once was a child, O the promise, the promise, then
the human disaster, this one and that one, XX Century
and the nuclear family
Large man, large dog, the man sitting (manshape against the
sky) and the dog sitting beside him (dogshape against
the sky) not wanting to run and play but just sit
beside him in silence on the grass, perfect, two so
different creatures yet One, I see how soft and gentle
the creator can be in this city
Good to share whiskey with Jamaican, my white lips his
black lips the same, no wiping the bottle
People from every part of America and the world walking and
sitting and being here together in the Melting Pot, I
sit and observe and am part of the scene and the passing
show several hours in delight, then walk again in the
Village and find the Aurora Bar gone from W. 4th Street,
I came new to this city in '57 and drank martinis after
work with Mahlon the Dwarf, Irky the Dog, Painter
Johnny Bowen and Adrian Moolenbrugh "Interior Decorator,"
now it's the Lichee Nut
Old sawdust 5-Star wino Mills bar on Bleeker now empty of
the old guys, no more hopelessly gnarled heads bowed
to the stark wooden tabletops and the floor
Sign on shop, Seventh Avenue South: "Ear Piercing/Your
Choice/With or Without Pain" - no prejudice against
masochists, all are served in Metropolis
I entering into Soho and Village art galleries, here
Jackson Pollock of my NY initiation, here someone new
to me and another new one, some good but some not
really so good and art all mixed up with XX Century
commerce, Vincent sold one painting in his life, now
Sunflowers worth millions
Soho News: epidemic of syphilis, gonorrhoea, herpes (an
evil one indeed), urethritis, genital cancer and
hepatitis among the swingers (straight and gay) in the
city - the sexual revolution now nightmare for its
most active adherents, all changes, all is flux and
all changes, yet somehow some will find a way out of
the vortex
New York dogwalkers carrying paper towels to pick up their
doggies' droppings and throw them in trashcans, how
civilized! In England dogshit all over the place,
thank God for much rain
Now West River, water, seagulls and me, New Jersey in the
distance, Statue of Liberty far away in the bay, good
to be by water, fortnight out of Brighton, the Channel
Historic S. Klein on the Square (Union and 14th St.) still
named but all dark boarded and ghostly, where do
immigrants shop now bedazzled?
New York! New York! poets, painters, dancers, actors,
musicians walking the streets with me! And nobody
notices or particularly cares seeing one of us stopping
a minute to put pen to paper right on the street or a
few steps away in a doorway, no misunderstandings, no
preconceptions, no petty comments, all is absorbed and
accepted in freedom
R. Gross and his Dairy Restaurant, 1372 Broadway, with an
official letter in the window certifying that the
Rabbi is in control and all is strictly kosher in
this place
New York Damon Runyan character in loud jacket leering
suggestively at passing pretty girl at Broadway and
36th, she's used to it and keeps eyes straight ahead
in her walking
Empire State Building an elegant massive delight, day of
the great liners, art deco, dancing at the Ritz, the
Savoy, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Cagney and Bogart,
the ganqsters and the socialites and the big bands and
all of the dread and glittering Thirties scene I was
born into
So many yellow cabs zooming, maneuvering, honking and
buzzing like angry wasps, and the unreal skyscrapers, and
what chaos on the streets and in the buildings if Bomb
fell, piles of hot wires in every wall, electrified
subways, wires under the pavements, in telephones and
computers and all of it crackling and burning and ducks
and lobsters spinning in air and splattered on the walls
in all the fine restaurants and "Hey! Whatsa matta
Russia!" from the gutter
Message spraypainted on base of statue in famous little
Herald Square park: "WOMEN! DON'T WORK WITH THE POLICE"
in red with "YOU'LL GET LAYED" added by someone else in
black - big lettering, too, no woman (or copper) could
possibly miss it, yet no one erases it
O what tragic stories sit here on the benches, remember me!
Grass in Greeley Square, guy with headphones and insect
antennae cap comes in on his bicycle, rearranges the
Square's three central dustbins and rides away, that's
all, nobody on the benches pays him the least bit of
attention, white, black or Chinese, New Yorkers!
Every face here that of a stranger! All these individuals
and individualists yet also all manifestations of the
great One, and I with them and am them
And what mystery the karma that brings this particular one
and that particular one and all of us to this one more
beat little Square in New York City, this place, this
day, this minute, to be New York City?
And these particular pigeons on this particular well-and-
truly-bombed statue?
O, all together such faces (and figures) could only be seen
in midtown Manhattan!
And hot chestnut and pretzel sellers, what can I say? And
these people going in and out of all these huge buildings.
And American policemen with guns on hip seemingly just
hanging out
Mannahatta, Mannahatta, you very real fantasy island you
are all the images needed!
And all the people in New York, black and white, old and
young, who walk the streets talking to themselves! All
the crazies roaming loose and I roaming with them
"Shit, man," exclaims black bicyclist who almost hits a
young white woman at corner of 34th, no one bats an
eyelash, not even the woman
O colorful city, all the subway trains 100% covered in
street-art initials graffiti
Look here now, one guard with gun on hip unloading money
from an armored car for the bank, his colleague standing
grimly at the door his gun in hand at his side, at the
ready, O yes, New York is its own metaphor, no need
to make up anything, no cause to embellish
Not seeing' no films, no shows, no TV, New York is the
streets and the places and people, not a second to lose,
walking, sitting, being, observing, recording theme
of my Consciousness as it meets this incredible city's,
and what is this telephone sales job for TIME/LIFE BOOKS
I'm supposed to start Monday!
Every day fabled Chelsea Hotel sleep and wakeup and out,
out to the streets, first wonder today old black man in
wool ski cap talking and laughing away to himself in
W. 23rd coffee shop, I'm so pleased that he's happy
Next wonder, bum sleeping on back steps of NY Public Library
with shopping bags at his side, maybe a book in them?
"Beauty/Old Yet Ever New/Eternal Voice/and Inward Word,"
trees, flowers, bushes and blue sky, a good place to
crash awhile in the city
Blacks in the same Library garden (Bryant Park) laughing
and slapping hands and saying "O, man, Stevie Wonder,
that's a mean dude!" and turning me on, wow, and we
talking of Shiva, Buddha, Walt Whitman and E1 Salvador,
not to mention Shorty's height that of a cockroach, more
black slap handshakes and Dan saying he got to write
this down, "O, man, I got to write this down!" and I
doing it also
Slice of pizza and papaya juice and young black cat at the
counter with me meticulously rolling a joint
And the famous (or infamous) Broadway-7th Ave.-42nd Street
lights! the lights! all these Kung Fu and Horror and
Sex cinemas also part of the madly imaginative Creator's
mind manifestations
And here "Spanish Fly, eight flavors"! and "Assorted French
Ticklers"! not to mention "Stay Hard Cream" and the
most explicit fellatio mag covers! O horrendous sexshops
and peepshows and windows!
New Bryant Theatre, 10 New SEXtacular SEXcitinq SEXational
LOVE Acts on Stage and, on screen, "Sexual Heights",
three-hour show - or 25 cents for XXX three-minute movies
in sex shops all around it and busy!
Golden Dollar Topless Bar & Lounge, "Exotic Girls!" migod
how charming or desperate those girls there just for
men to ogle, maybe to touch! not long ago High School
cheerleaders in Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska
And far from Nebraska you can get a Front Page with your
name in headlines on Broadway: RALPH BINNS FARTS IN
SUBWAY - 67 DEAD!
Now black and white tipster and hipster talk at the
Broadway and 42nd Street Off-Track Betting Shop, I
fading into the picture, just one more jobless john
playing the horses
Forlorn girl with cardboard sign: HELP ME. MY PURSE WAS
SNATCHED, and I giving her a dollar and a little
compassion
"Jesus Saves" black preacher at 7th Avenue and 42nd
street preachers' corner, hellstone and brimfire and
no one but the tourists and me looking or caring,
everyone's free to do his thing in this city and boy
do they do it!
Legendary cafeteria Dubrow's, 7th Avenue and W. 38th
Street, what food selection, steam tables, steel
cookers, small inferno, now respectable middle-class
eatery but what New World stories here at all of the
tables!
Dinosaur cars and trucks as patient as such creatures can
be staking out turf rights, horn honking order of the
day...and the evening and the night and the dawn of
the new day NY forever
And O Bowery history! The dead walking, so much gone,
such blasted spirit of man, so much forgotten,
cigarette and small change for Spectre trembling
in light shirt - "I gotta get a coat, I gotta get a
coat soon!" winter arriving, one more eternal NY
scene for a century
And what historical names, late-XIX early-XX Century
immigrant insurge to the streets of gold: Mulberry,
Mott, Second Avenue, Bowery, Delancey!
"Can you spare a cigarette?" "Yeh, right" again on the
Bowery. And then the most incredible hard luck
story, no way to describe it
Old drunks in Bowery bar discussing "years ago" and,
surprisingly, bowling, knowing all the names and
statistics, and a Mongolian Idiot slobbering happily
at the toilet end of the bar and the guy in the black
and white TV movie is holding a cross up to the
Blob, "Haha, he thinks it's a vampire!" laughs the
blackbearded bartender meaning no harm but getting
a kick out of the Blob's assimilating poor trusting
Christian
Lower East Side/East Village of my NY initiation, the Beat,
the Hippie, the Immigrant, the Poor, white and black,
the offbeat galleries and bookstores and clothes
shops on St. Mark's Place, the color, the life of the
streets
Tompkins Square park where I sit and listen to a lone
Japanese jazzman singing through his sax in America
O, I L(o)ve NY, the joy both outer and inner! come a long
way in seeing since NY young man death & doom vision
22 years ago!
Passing the "NY Institute of Classical Yoga," 8th Avenue
and 24th Street, I see ex-guru Muktananda photo
staring at me! Sorry, Baba, you left out too much of
the world for a comic yogi and poet
Walking home in evening darkness, "That's nice!" to girl
passing, making music, blowing a paper streamer, she's
suspicious but as I pass and say nothing more returns
faint smile to my smile
A stop in bar - historical old faded blonde in low-cut
red dress and man, gray and even older, arguing about
the deceptions of love in Metropolis, NY drama,
W. 23rd Street Green Rooster, both lone, glad to have
each other to talk to, passionate four-letter-word talk
but no saying nothing too harsh to chase away
confidante
Star Cafe across from Green Rooster now, black bar, black
rhythm and jazz, foxy lady behind bar in glittering
silver blouse knows me and is "glad to see you," one
white face on bar vine midst bloom of black faces.
She remembers that my Guinness is not to be too cold
and, pleased with herself as O how pleased I am with
her, says "This is strong stuff and it has the vitamins
in it!"
Eddie comes in and regales me with dread tales of the
painting business and the streets and his joys and
woes, can't pay for return drink, can't pay for new
glasses
Home to divine beat old Chelsea to rest feet hot from
centuries of walking this planet
Yet even indoors I am drawn to the window to see fabulous
beings in the streets below, not dominated by buildings,
not defeated by grime, noise, crime or whatever, and
Bomb doesn't know history herstory or would be struck
dumb with shame, little yellow taxis carrying NY
guests and natives uptown and downtown only to disappear
leaving even 7th Avenue empty, one more American
ghost street when Bomb lights the night sky, now not
one empty second from sunrise to sunset to sunrise
again
Now I sit on my bed with my new pair of $30-in-one-hour
glasses from mid-Manhattan, this yellow pad I'm writing
on with this felt-tipped pen, my journal, my what-to-
do-today notebook (and pen, a second one), a rubber
band to hold last pen in last notebook, cigarettes
and matches, a half-pint of Seagram's 7, I'm in my
underwear feeling gleefully beatific, comfortable,
secure and at peace in this city, a cockroach for
company, jazz on new tiny radio, $5, 8th Avenue
Mad Hindu from next room mumbling "Krishna! Krishna!
Krishna!" in his lunghi through the halls of Hotel
America
Sirens below on the street, so many dramas, so many
stories, such eternal dream-reality and such courage,
Reagan-Brezhnev, don't bomb these people, really,
don't bomb them! just don't!
"Wow Wow!" go the sirens, police and ambulance, life and
death dramas since the beginnings of time, the streets
darkening, soon NY night life beginning and is that
not amazing!
End of week walking and being here, my hand in Shiva's,
nobody's knifed me or shot me or mugged me, quit
telephone sales job after one hour, weather turning
colder, maybe white snow on these fabled streets come
tomorrow
II
bright blooming flowers
here too in the city --
not to forget them
Beautiful sweet honey-blonde teenager Ami with
"So. Laurel Cheerleader" on her blue jacket
in her blue jeans and red-white-and-blue
sneakers bounces into the beat cafeteria
where I'm having a cup of tea, you'd expect
to see her in Corn-Is-Green, Iowa, but she
is here, New York City!
And Anita waitress in W. 23rd and 7th Avenue
coffee-'n'-doughnut shop, a Puerto Rican
Barbie doll, so petite and pretty in her
short white waitress uniform and little red
apron, a little cross, too, pouting quite
a lot because she has to serve men, she
won't smile at them either, Knowing they
all want to kiss her
And all the little Jewish girls, black girls,
Irish girls, Italian girls, Puerto Rican
girls, Chinese girls and Nebraska girls,
gurls gurls qurls walking these streets!
such innocent eyes! such tenderness! this
city's made gentler because they are here
And the little mink-like creature bundling her
pert round bottom into a taxi in the middle
of the street, 34th and Broadway, car horns
all blaring around her
And the fair Kansas maiden seen through
Sloane's grocery store window with shopping
basket in one hand and in the other her
shopping list scrutinized with a faint,
mysterious smile, now NY Mona Lisa
And the round, soft though brash redheaded
teenage angel in jeans chewing gum, ripe
red lips moving, outside Bleeker Street
deli, "What yuh lookin' at?" and she
shatters Poet's dream - but for only a
second
And sweet stacked lively Irish Mary who giggles
at and parries all the madman male thrusts
in the Green Rooster Bar, W. 23rd off
Avenue Seventh
And the young Puerto Rican girl in Mickey Mouse
sweatshirt hanging red velvet balls in the
window of "New York New York" in the Village,
corner of 7th Avenue South and W. 10th Street,
with "I L(o)ve NY" stickers all over the windows,
rails and steps (I buy an "I L(o)ve NY" badge
and pin it to my coat and ah! she smiles
at graybearded me)
And Christina the Italian-American hooker, 21
looks 16, whom I do not take back to the
Chelsea with me from St. Marks Place and
Cooper Square bar but give $10 to for kissing
and touching her O so tender cheeks and her
neck and her breasts and her sweet honeypot
treasure she knowingly lent me awhile,
lone drink or two in the gloaming
(What if I could spend one night with each of
them seeing what they do, hearing what they
say!)
And the one of dark eyes of deep Eastern promise
drinking espresso in "FOOD" new bohemia
Soho, Prince and Wooster, looking right at
me with interest through the window as I
write about her this moment
And the fine young black girl who takes a light
off my cigarette in Madison Square park,
5th Avenue and 24th, her fingers touching
mine and saying "Thank you," and I so pleased
saying "You're welcome"
And the two delightful Chinese girls giggling
together at the corner of Lafayette and Canal
Streets, north border of Chinatown in the rain
And the two little blonde ones - so tender! -
carrying roller skates over their marvelous
round dimpled shoulders at 30th Street and
8th Avenue Sunday
And the pretty one giving such a sweet peck to
her boyfriend's cheek in 5th Avenue teashop,
she's auburn-haired, moral and friendly
And the smart pretty receptionists in all the
smart Madison Avenue offices smiling us
OM!
bright blooming flowers
here too
in this city
joying me -
body-senses
mind
heart
and spirit
III
Washington Square Tuesday Morning
Three hours sleep last night, no will to walk
today, just sit in November morning sunlight
in Washington Square drinking and smoking,
watching the people, watching the trees and
the grass, the squirrels and the pigeons
and sparrows, looking up at the sky
Schoolchildren playing in a group in the Square's
playground, very precious as you see so few of
them on the streets, New York City
Black dope dealers dealing, leaf sweepers
sweeping, joggers jogging in track suits,
male and female, madman lying in the leaves
howling, traffic passing, grandmothers
with babies in baby carriages, dog walkers,
citizens down on their luck hanging out,
NYU students going to their classes and
perhaps tender lovers
The ground beneath my feet moves though it
appears to stand still, I sitting on green
bench on the rim of the universe
Unemployed blacks standing around passing a
bottle, far now, very far from Africa
homeland, right here is their world as mine
and I love to study their faces and hear
their black talk and laughter
Boy and girl Passing, she's chewing gum and
talking to him, I wonder what revelations
her spirit has for his spirit
Black woman pushing old white rich woman in
wheelchair, soon Sri Lord Death will have
the old woman (who came into being a sweet
blooming girl child) and the black woman'll
be out of a job
Garibaldi bedecked with pigeon shit eternally
about to draw his sword against all of us -
but he never does it, why would he do it?
Black guitarist in black turban covering head
spaced out in Infinity shares his cosmic
thinking and music with me, most incredible
meeting, scratching his crotch, cursing
passersby (who have a quick glance but don't
blink an eye, native New Yorkers), he's
ready to drop a neutron bomb on New York
for some reason, too much for me though in
his best moments playing and singing
Old white man with cane contemplating his sick
bare foot on a bench
Neat little chicks, blackhaired and blonde,
cutting along dressed as it pleases them
Leaves yellow and falling, the beginning of
winter, life again over, to be resurrected
in springtime
Frisbies gliding through air, bongos and guitars
and joints passed at the Fountain
OM!
I am
at home
here
and
these are
my people
and
deep regret
for finance
of the world
I must leave
this city
tomorrow
-NY 16.XI.81 - 24.XI.81
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