Meanwhile it is darkening as if to rain

and the wind on top of the trees in the

street comes through almost harshly.

Denver, Summer 1947

Two Sonnets

After Reading Kerouac’s Manuscript

The Town and the City

I

I dwelled in Hell on earth to write this rhyme,

I live in stillness now, in living flame;

I witness Heaven in unholy time,

I room in the renownèd city, am

Unknown. The fame I dwell in is not mine,

I would not have it. Angels in the air

Serenade my senses in delight.

Intelligence of poets, saints and fair

Characters converse with me all night.

But all the streets are burning everywhere.

The city is burning these multitudes that climb

Her buildings. Their inferno is the same

I scaled as a stupendous blazing stair.

They vanish as I look into the light.

II

Woe unto thee, Manhattan, woe to thee,

Woe unto all the cities of the world.

Repent, Chicagos, O repent; ah, me!

Los Angeles, now thou art gone so wild,

I think thou art still mighty, yet shall be,

As the earth shook, and San Francisco fell,

An angel in an agony of flame.

City of horrors, New York so much like Hell,

How soon thou shalt be city-without-name,

A tomb of souls, and a poor broken knell.

Fire and fire on London, Moscow shall die,

And Paris her livid atomies be rolled

Together into the Woe of the blazing bell—

All cities then shall toll for their great fame.

New York, Spring 1948

On Reading William Blake’s “The Sick Rose”

Rose of spirit, rose of light,

Flower whereof all will tell,

Is this black vision of my sight

The fashion of a prideful spell,

Mystic charm or magic bright,

O Judgement of fire and of fright?

What everlasting force confounded

In its being, like some human

Spirit shrunken in a bounded

Immortality, what Blossom

Gathers us inward, astounded?

Is this the sickness that is Doom?

East Harlem, June-July 1948

The Eye Altering Alters All

Many seek and never see,

anyone can tell them why.

O they weep and O they cry

and never take until they try

unless they try it in their sleep

and never some until they die.

I ask many, they ask me.

This is a great mystery.

East Harlem, June-July 1948

A Very Dove

A very Dove will have her love

     ere the Dove has died;

the spirit, vanity approve,

     will even love in pride;

and cannot love, and yet can hate,

     spirit to fulfill;

the spirit cannot watch and wait,

     the Hawk must have his kill.

There is a Gull that rolls alone

     over billows loud;

the Nightingale at night will moan

     under her soft shroud.

East Harlem, July 1948

Vision 1948

Dread spirit in me that I ever try

          With written words to move,

Hear thou my plea, at last reply

          To my impotent pen:

Should I endure, and never prove

          Yourself and me in love,

Tell me, spirit, tell me, O what then?

And if not love, why, then, another passion

          For me to pass in image:

Shadow, shadow, and blind vision.

          Dumb roar of the white trance,

Ecstatic shadow out of rage,

          Power out of passage.

Dance, dance, spirit, spirit, dance!

Is it my fancy that the world is still,

          So gentle in her dream?

Outside, great Harlems of the will

          Move under black sleep:

Yet in spiritual scream,

          The saxophones the same

As me in madness call thee from the deep.

I shudder with intelligence and I

          Wake in the deep light

And hear a vast machinery

          Descending without sound,

Intolerable to me, too bright,

          And shaken in the sight

The eye goes blind before the world goes round.

East Harlem, July 1948

Do We Understand Each Other?

My love has come to ride me home

To our room and bed.

I had walked the wide sea path,

For my love would roam

In absence long and glad

All through our land of wrath.

We wandered wondrously

I, still mild, true and sad,