Empire Waits

Do you know there are places where the quiet heart can go
In the depths of the city where the winds forget to blow
Or on ghostly avenues where stand streetcorner dates,
Or round the penultimate corner where empire waits?
And here there are tinklings of something obscure,
A falling-down sound or a scent somehow pure-
Blown from backstreets of bridges, and burnt clocks that chime
That the night of the city is mine.
There she lurks, the sweet phantom, or anima-shade
Where the glimmers of Friday night fade-
And she steals my wan heart, and abandons it there
To steal sweet summer songs from the wings of despair.
(Do you know there is meaning when crowds leave the streets,
In the dust and debris, in the echoes of feet,
And in those dull echoes you hear a heartbeat
That sounds and resounds with memories sweet?)
..... and the sharp sound of triumph, that follows you on,
Till its echoes are gone,
One by one.
But in that there are secrets, and signals, and signs
Of a voice of salvation whose tone is sublime
From the sad wings of death, and the dull banks of time,
And it sings that the night of the city is mine,
Always mine.

The City's Heart

Where will we find the city's heart?
It's in the faces of the men that gamble and are gone,
Grey-faced like shadows they whisper sexual secrets,
Hands fumbling in pockets, lips loose with drink.
Speaking of nothing but collective and commonplace sorrow-
Felt by fat-armed mammas in brothels and hotels,
Eyes unbearably dark, bodies laden with tribulation,
Bodies upheld by a feverish, anxious love,
A string that sometimes twines thick,
And sometimes wears away to taut thinness,
And then, in long oppressive evenings,
Becomes as fragile as a spider's web... and yet as strong,
Enough to support the kindly hand of death, and not to break.
Behind windows of the city, where liquid light wanly flickers and goes out,
And brooding faces are sometimes seen, biting lips, preoccupied
In the great windy gusts of life, in the nameless spaces of solitude.
But o heroic thought, that batters the brainpans of man,
And coaxes him delightfully from love to pain,
To sink and rise and sink again,
Like a pinball in a mad machine...
My heart goes out to nothingness but only finds echoes in things,
And thus the city's heart responds, in ready words of love and cheer,
That you can read, if you are able, in the blank blaze of bars,
In the eyes of strange girls, in the frsh-lipped faces of friends,
Behind their human eyes and on their mortal noses,
Like new forms seen in a joyful dream.

prelude to the inexhaustible city part 2

Finally he ended up in a room with darkened windows, windows blackened-out or smeared in soot as if to conceal shameful crimes. The floorboards were chipped-bare, and creaked echoingly as he trod over them. He was by now in such a disoriented state that he couldn't tell whether he was in a basement or in a penthouse flat, nor did he care.
It seemed like an artist's studio, out-of-the-way, bare, with slim iron pillars that held up the plaster roof. The woman leading him in led him to a corner where there were the rudiments of a home, a red-shaded standard lamp that she clicked on and which emitted a dim yellow light, and a plump satin couch that she pushed him back on, and among whose cushions he reeled and sank. Half-comatose there, unshaven and ruffle-haired, M. saw her step forward into the lamp-light from the dust and darkness of the room.
Her curled hair was very honey-yellow blonde, and in it could be seen depths and tints of richer orange-yellow colour that shone and sprinkled in the light. Her mouth was open in a wide grin, and he saw the light blaze on her white teeth and red lips. She advanced as if to devour him, to mock or reprimand him. The thing that shocked M though were her eyes, that were madly blue, of a lifeless blue which seemed yet to have an infinite depth, which seemed to recede into her eye. Her naked limbs that thrust forward as she bent over his still form, and her breasts bulged sadly from her tight red dress so that the line of her cleavage was highlighted in shadow. She seemed vital, alive, blood pulsing through her veins, life-force so strong in her that it was frightening....