Manhattan Noir 2 (12 page)
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow He will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore.’”
But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She
shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—
is
there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting,
still
is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
SELECTIONS FROM
CHELSEA ROOMING HOUSE
(Originally published in 1930)
L
ONGFACE
M
AHONEY
D
ISCUSSES
H
EAVEN
If someone said, Escape,
let’s get away from here,
you’d see snow mountains thrown
against the sky,
cold, and you’d draw your breath and feel
air like cold water going through your veins,
but you’d be free, up so high,
or you’d see a row of girls dancing on a beach
with tropic trees and a warm moon
and warm air floating under your clothes
and through your hair.
Then you’d think of heaven
where there’s peace, away from here
and you’d go some place unreal
where everybody goes after something happens,
set up in the air, safe, a room in a hotel.
A brass bed, military hair brushes,
a couple of coats, trousers, maybe a dress
on a chair or draped on the floor.
This room is not on earth, feel the air,
warm like heaven and far away.
This is a place
where marriage nights are kept
and sometimes here you say, Hello
to a neat girl with you
and sometimes she laughs
because she thinks it’s funny to be sitting here
for no reason at all, except perhaps,
she likes you daddy.
Maybe this isn’t heaven but near
to something like it,
more like love coming up in elevators
and nothing to think about, except, O God,
you love her now and it makes no difference
if it isn’t spring. All seasons are warm
in the warm air
and the brass bed is always there.
If you’ve done something
and the cops get you afterwards, you
can’t remember the place again,
away from cops and streets—
it’s all unreal—
the warm air, a dream
that couldn’t save you now.
No one would care
to hear about it,
it would be heaven
far away, dark and no music,
not even a girl there.
T
IME AND
I
SIDORE
L
EFKOWITZ
It is not good to feel old
for time is heavy,
time is heavy
on a man’s brain,
thrusting him down,
gasping into the earth,
out of the way of the sun
and the rain.
Look at Isidore Lefkowitz,
biting his nails, telling how
he seduces Beautiful French Canadian
Five and Ten Cent Store Girls,
beautiful, by God, and how they cry
and moan, wrapping their arms
and legs around him
when he leaves them
saying:
Good bye,
good bye.
He feels old when he tells
these stories over and over,
(how the Beautiful Five and Ten Cent Store
Girls go crazy when he puts on
his clothes and is gone),
these old lies
that maybe nobody at all believes.
He feels old thinking how
once he gave five
dollars to a girl
who made him feel like other men
and wonders if she is still alive.
If he were a millionaire,
if he could spend five dollars now,
he could show them how
he was strong and handsome then,
better than other men.
But it is not good to feel old,
time is too heavy,
it gets a man
tired, tired
when he thinks how time wears
him down
and girls, milk-fed, white,
vanish with glorious smiling millionaires
in silver limousines.
B
RIDGEWATER
J
ONES:
I
MPROMPTU IN A
S
PEAKEASY
When you’ve been through what I’ve been through
over in France where war was hell
and everything turned to blood and mud
and you get covered with blood and rain
and rain and mud
then you come back home again,
come back home and make good in business.
You don’t know how and you don’t know why;
it’s enough to make God stand still and wonder.
It’s something that makes you sit down and think
and you want to say something that’s clear and deep,
something that someone can understand:
that’s why I got to be confidential
and see things clear and say what I mean,
something that’s almost like a sermon,
O world without end,
amen.
When you can’t see things then you get like Nelly
and somebody has to put you out
and somebody has to put you away
but you can always see through Nelly.
She unrolled like a map on the office floor,
you could see her in the dark—
a blind pink cat
in the back seat of the Judge’s car.
But she’d get cold in the Globe Hotel,
singing songs like the Songs of Solomon,
making the Good Book sound immoral
then she’d say she was Mother Mary
and the strength of sin is the law.
World without end
amen.
Gentlemen, I had to fire Nelly,
she didn’t see when a man’s in business,
she didn’t know when a man’s a Christian
you can’t go singing the Songs of Solomon,
shouting Holy, holy, holy,
making Mother of Christ a whore,
cold as rain,
dead blood and rain like the goddam war,
cold as Nelly telling you hell you killed her baby,
then she couldn’t take a letter
but would sit down and cry
like rain.
It got so bad I couldn’t sleep
with her hair and eyes and breasts and belly
and arms around me
like rain, rain,
rain without end
amen.
I tell you gentlemen almighty God,
I didn’t kill her dead baby,
it was the rain
falling on men and girls and cities.
Ask the Judge (he’s got a girl)
about a baby:
a baby wants life and sun, not rain by God that’s death
when you float a baby down the sewer into the
East River with its lips
making foam at the stern of ships
head on for Liverpool in rain.
You can’t see what happens in rain
(only God knows, world without end)
maybe war, maybe a dead baby.
There’s no good when rain falls on a man;
I had to make it clear,
that’s what I wanted to explain.
SELECTIONS FROM
THE MCSORLEY POEMS
(Originally published in 2001)
M
ISYCK, THE
N
IGHT
W
ATCHMAN
I sit alone here at night, listening
doors and windows twisted
by McSorley’s heavy sag
everything out of whack
creak and groan of ghosts
they speak, you know
but Woodrow Wilson there
I can’t understand him
he garbles his words
My brother Jerzy’s dead thirty years tonight
we grew up here on 7th Street
St. George’s, God and girls
stickball, cars and beer
then we started the skag
Jerzy shot up first
I was belting my arm
when he sat back
his eyes went real wide
like flooring the Buick
feeling that crazy rush
Bill McSorley up there by the icebox
resembles Teddy Roosevelt
a smaller moustache
timid eyes, sour mouth
really did love his old man
vowed to keep the bar
as is
kill time in this real place
now just a face on the wall
the bar a mute witness
to Bill’s doomed love
My favorite relic is the playbill from the 1880s
a windmill and two dutchgirls
on a forlorn spit of land
the ocean a white-capped menace
What Are The Wild Waves Saying?
some March nights it blows
so hard against the windows
I’d swear it’s Jerzy’s voice
Larry, homeless black wraith, taps the window
I make him a liverwurst on rye
some nights he has d.t.s
tonight he’s souful
I fucked up,
he says
shoeless, he begins again
his scabrous circle
East Village Odysseus
The ripe nude in the painting back there
I don’t like her much
she knows she’s got it
that mouth of plump disdain