Along the shore
A black net of branches
Tangles the pulpy yellow lamps. 
The shell-colored sky is lustrous with the fading sun. 
Across the river Manhattan floats—­
Dim gardens of fire—­
And rushing invisible toward me through the fog,
A hurricane of faces.

SNOW DANCE

Black brooms of trees sweep the sky clean;
Sweep the house fronts,
And leave them bleak in sleep. 
High up the empty moon
Spills her vacuity.

I dance. 
My long black shadow

Weaves an invisible pattern of pain. 
The snow
Is embroidered with my happiness.

POTTER’S FIELD

Golden petals, honey sweet,
Crushed beneath fear-hastened feet...

Silver paper lanterns glow and shudder
in flat patterns
On a gray eternal face
Stained with pain.

LIGHTS AT NIGHT

In the city,
Storms of light
Surge against the clouds,
Pushing up the darkness.

In the country,
Is the faint pressure of oil lamps,
That sputter,
Smothered with earth—­
Extinguished in silence.

MIDNIGHT

The golden snow of the stars
Drifts in mounds of light,
Melts against the hot sides of the city,
Cool cheek against burning breast,
Cold golden snow,
Falling all night.

CROWDS

SUMMER NIGHT

The bloated moon
Has sickly leaves glistening against her
Like flies on a fat white face.

The thick-witted drunkard on the park bench
Touches a girl’s breast
That throbs with its own ruthless and stupid delight. 
The new-born child crawls in his mother’s filth. 
Life, the sleep walker,
Lifts toward the skies
An immense gesture of indecency.

NEW YORK

With huge diaphanous feet,
March the leaden velvet elephants,
Pressing the bodies back into the earth.

SUNSET:  BATTERY PARK

From cliffs of houses,
Sunlit windows gaze down upon me
Like undeniable eyes,
Millions of bronze eyes,
Unassailable,
Obliterating all they see: 
The warm contiguous crowd in the street below
Chills,
Mists,
Drifts past those hungry eyes of Eternity,
Melts seaward and deathward
To the ocean.

CROWDS

The sky along the street a gauzy yellow: 
The narrow lights burn tall in the twilight.

The cool air sags,
Heavy with the thickness of bodies. 
I am elated with bodies. 
They have stolen me from myself. 
I love the way they beat me to life,
Pay me for their cruelties. 
In the close intimacy I feel for them
There is the indecency I like.