We of the Streets
Streets are full of the scent of us—odors of onions drifting from doorways, effuvium
of baby new-born downstairs, seeping smells of warm soap-suds—the streets are
lush with the ferment of our living.
Our sea is water swirling in gutters; our lightning is the blue flame of an acetylene
torch; billboards blossom with the colors of a billion flowers; we hear thunder
when the “L” roars; our strip of sky is a dirty shirt.
We have grown used to nervous landscapes, chimney-broken horizons, and the sun
dying between tenements; we have grown to love streets, the ways of streets; our
bodies are hard like worn pavement.
Our emblems are street emblems: stringy curtains blowing in windows; sticky-fingered
babies tumbling on door-steps; deep-cellared laughs meant for everybody; slow
groans heard in area-ways.
Our sunshine is a common hope; our common summer and common winter a common
joy and a common sorrow; our fraternity is shoulder-rubbing crude with unspoken
love; our password the wry smile that speaks a common fate.
Our love is nurtured by the soft flares of gas-lights; our hate is an icy wind screaming
around corners.
And there is something in the streets that made us feel immortality when we rushed
along ten thousand strong, hearing our chant fill the world, wanting to do what
none of us would do alone, aching to shout the forbidden word, knowing that we
of the streets are deathless. . . .
from New Masses, April 13, 1937
Streets are full of the scent of us—odors of onions drifting from doorways, effuvium
of baby new-born downstairs, seeping smells of warm soap-suds—the streets are
lush with the ferment of our living.
Our sea is water swirling in gutters; our lightning is the blue flame of an acetylene
torch; billboards blossom with the colors of a billion flowers; we hear thunder
when the “L” roars; our strip of sky is a dirty shirt.
We have grown used to nervous landscapes, chimney-broken horizons, and the sun
dying between tenements; we have grown to love streets, the ways of streets; our
bodies are hard like worn pavement.
Our emblems are street emblems: stringy curtains blowing in windows; sticky-fingered
babies tumbling on door-steps; deep-cellared laughs meant for everybody; slow
groans heard in area-ways.
Our sunshine is a common hope; our common summer and common winter a common
joy and a common sorrow; our fraternity is shoulder-rubbing crude with unspoken
love; our password the wry smile that speaks a common fate.
Our love is nurtured by the soft flares of gas-lights; our hate is an icy wind screaming
around corners.
And there is something in the streets that made us feel immortality when we rushed
along ten thousand strong, hearing our chant fill the world, wanting to do what
none of us would do alone, aching to shout the forbidden word, knowing that we
of the streets are deathless. . . .
from New Masses, April 13, 1937