My Sad Self
To Frank O’Hara
Sometimes when my eyes are red
I go up on top of the RCA Building
and gaze at
my world, Manhattan—
my buildings, streets I’ve done feats in,
lofts, beds, coldwater flats
—on Fifth Ave below which I also bear in mind,
its ant
cars, little yellow taxis, men
walking
the size of specks of wool—
Panorama of the
bridges, sunrise over Brooklyn machine,
sun go down
over New Jersey where I was born
&
Paterson where I played with ants—
my later loves on
15th Street,
my greater
loves of Lower East Side,
my once
fabulous amours in the Bronx
faraway—
paths crossing in
these hidden streets,
my history
summed up, my absences
and
ecstasies in Harlem—
—sun shining
down on all I own
in one eyeblink
to the horizon
in my
last eternity—
matter is
water.
Sad,
I take the
elevator and go
down,
pondering,
and walk on the pavements staring into all man’s
plateglass, faces,
questioning after who loves,
and stop,
bemused
in front
of an automobile shopwindow
standing lost in
calm thought,
traffic
moving up & down 5th Avenue blocks behind me
waiting for a moment when ...
Time to go home & cook supper & listen to
the romantic war news on the radio
... all
movement stops
& I walk in the timeless sadness of existence,
tenderness
flowing thru the buildings,
my
fingertips touching reality’s face,
my own face
streaked with tears in the mirror
of some
window—at dusk—
where I
have no desire—
for bonbons—or
to own the dresses or Japanese
lampshades of intellection—
Confused by the spectacle around me,
Man
struggling up the street
with packages, newspapers,
ties, beautiful suits
toward his desire
Man, woman,
streaming over the pavements
red lights clocking hurried watches &
movements at the curb—
And all these streets leading
so
crosswise, honking, lengthily,
by avenues
stalked by
high buildings or crusted into slums
thru such halting traffic
screaming cars and engines
so painfully to this
countryside,
this graveyard
this stillness
on
deathbed or mountain
once seen
never regained or desired
in
the mind to come
where all Manhattan that I’ve seen must disappear.
New York, October 1958
Allen Ginsberg
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