Cities
Oh cities are a fever in my blood,
And all their moods find lodgement in my breast,
Whether they sweep me onward like a flood
Or torture me as an unwanted guest,
With wormwood flavoring my scanty foods,
I love all cities, I love their changing moods.
I love all cities, I love their foreign ways,
Their tyranny over the life of man,
Their wakeful nights and never-resting days,
Their mighty movements seeming without plan,
Their pavement stones on which the broken fall,
Their damning wickedness: I love it all.
1935
Barcelona
I
In Barcelona town they dance the nights
Along the streets. The folk, erecting stands
Upon the people’s pavements, come together
From pueblo, barrio, in families,
Lured by the lilting playing of the bands,
Rejoicing in the balmy summer weather,
In spreading rings they weave fine fantasies
Like rare mosaics of many-colored lights.
Kindled, it glows, the magical Sardana,
And sweeps the city in a glorious blaze.
The garrison, the sailors from the ships,
The workers join and block the city’s ways,
Ripe laughter ringing from intriguing lips,
Crescending like a wonderful hosanna.
II
Oh admirable city from every range!
Whether I stand upon your natural towers,—
With your blue carpet spreading to their feet,
Its patterns undulate between the bars,—
Watching until the tender twilight hours,
Its motion cradling soft a silver fleet;
Or far descend from underneath the stars,
Down—to your bottoms sinister and strange:
The nights eccentric of the Barrio Chino,
The creatures of the shadows of the walls,
Gray like the savage caricatures of Goya,
The chulos of the abysmal dancing halls,
And, in the garish lights of La Criolla,
The feminine flamenco of El Niño.
III
Oh Barcelona, queen of Europe’s cities,
From dulcet thoughts of you my guts are twisted
With bitter pain of longing for your sights,
And for your hills, your picturesque glory singing,
My feet are mutinous, mine eyes are misted.
Upon my happy thoughts your harbor lights
Are shimmering like bells melodious ringing
With sweet cadenzas of flamenco ditties.
I see your movement flashing like a knife,
Reeling my senses, drunk upon the hues
Of motion, the eternal rainbow wheel,
Your passion smouldering like a lighted fuse,
But more than all sensations oh, I feel
Your color flaming in the dance of life.
1937
I
Upon this bridgehead of the broken span
Of two opposing continents, the air
Is hostile with the restless spirit of Mars,
Men’s souls are nourished on religious hate,
Their children on suspicion and in fear,
Fresh wounds are ever made in ancient scars,
Life sacrificed to the gods insatiate
Of Christian, Israelite, Mohammedan.
Morocco’s severed head is Europe’s ball
Kicked from goal to goal and all around—
In the African game of the European
Until the charming Paradisiacal ground
Is desolate and helpless from intrigue
And aptly christened International!
II
Tanger, the iron pirate fettered now,
With iron heavy upon your bruised feet,
And iron manacles on your helpless hand,
Watching the galleons go down the seas—
With golden cargo passing safe and fleet,
And brazen sounding horns over the land—
Between the guarded pillars of Hercules:—
What thoughts are hid behind your lowered brow?
The tourists stop to gaze at you in chains
And purchase from the souks a souvenir,
Thinking your soul breathes in a servile guide.
But in the bled the rugged mountaineer,
Invoking God in fierce fanatic pride,
Lives by the shattered glory that still remains.
III
Tanger! A Rock of Ages painted white.
And oh, I found within your native niche
A beauty pregnant of life’s pristine womb,
Whose fingers, dripping with experience,
Caressed my spirit and held it growing rich,
While, on your bosom asleep, I heard the drum
Of Africa upswelling from the dense
Dim deeps to stir you far upon the height.
Oh, I have felt the breaking wave on wave
Of ages washing up against your base,
From warm Sahara, heart of dark Soudan,
The clash and clamor of time, the human race
Within the cradle Mediterranean,
Round yon high symbol of the Berber brave!
circa 1934
Fez
Mine eyes saw Fez, my heart exclaimed Baghdad
In Africa. And smitten took her whole:
Her labyrinthine lanes and crooked souks,
And costumes hooding beauty from men’s sight.
I am haunted by the aspect of her soul,
Obscure like her dim passages and nooks—
The laughing colors of infinite delight,
Created by a folk so strangely sad:
The houris of the sordid Paradise
Of Moulay Abdullah, the nights exotic,
And one dear night upon my memory warm,
Sweet and enthralling like a dream erotic
Of beauty African in shape and form,
With glowing fire of Andalusian eyes.
circa 1934
High ramparts, tombs and mosques and mansions vaunting
Above the myriad huts of straw and clay,
Against the palms and olive branches singing,
Beneath the circling Atlas grand and hoary,
Barbaric strength of swarthy sultans’ sway—
While walls re-echo with the bell-like ringing
Of Muezzins’ voices chanting Allah’s glory,
And ghosts of warriors ancient flags are flaunting:
The Berber youngsters pitch their little tents,
And skip gazelle-like for the approving throng
Of nomads purchasing the city’s joys—
African drum beat, oriental song,
Salome-sensual dance of jeweled boys,
Amidst the ruins of austere monuments.
circa 1934
Tetuan
The conquering Moor an homage paid to Spain
And the Alhambra lifted up its towers!
Africa’s fingers tipped with miracles,
And quivering with Arabian designs,
Traced words and figures like exotic flowers,
Sultanas’ chambers of rare tapestries,
Filigree marvels from Koranic lines,
Mosaics chanting notes like tropic rain.
And Spain repaid the tribute ages after:
To Tetuan, that fort of struggle and strife,
Where chagrined Andalusian Moors retired,
She brought a fountain bubbling with new life,
Whose crystal charm won even the Moslem pride,
And filled it sparkling with flamenco laughter.
1937
Oh, lovely fountain bubbling in my breast,
And cleansing all the bitter memories,
Of pilgriming over the gutters of life:
Flow tenderly along the avenue
Of my bruised body, heavy upon my knees,
And wash the incisions where the sharp-edged knife
Of circumstance has penetrated through:—
Bathe me always your wandering guest.
Oh, lovely fountain flowing like the dawn,
That comes like spiders weaving silver charm
Upon the heavy dews of Afric’s night,
Perspiring for the happy days so warm
And amorous from the pressure of the light,
Playing upon the gem the Moors call Xauen.
circa 1934
Cadiz
Spain has no beauty like this silver rod,
Head thrust within the Mediterranean blue,
With jeweled mouth wide-open to the West,
And eyes that charm the spirits of the sea,
Here perched upon the glorious avenue
Of immemorial traffic, self-possessed
In sceptered light she glows eternally,
An orchid flowering from the feet of god.
I wish I clearly knew what beauty is
And what it means and what it does to man,
Whether it is a luxury or need,
The pattern of life’s universal plan,
Or must it serve a dogma or a creed,
Or is it magic merely, like Cadiz!
circa 1934
There was a haughty spirit and impressive
In that deliberate granite pile on pile,
Rising so arrogant and challenging,
Imposing by sheer strength and heavy line
A stony will in ruthless Nordic style.
And of that massive grandeur everything
Created seemed and destined by design
To foster iron virtues and aggressive.
I sensed a brutal might and intrepid,
A Frankenstein in which the dynamo
Of Europe throbbed with sinister intent.
Yet strangely from the common ebb and flow
Issued a surge of sickening sentiment
Around that force rococo, insipid.
circa 1934
Moscow
Moscow for many loving her was dead …
I saw a scintillant Byzantine fair,
Of jewelled buildings, pillars, domes and spires
Of hues prismatic dazzling to the sight.
A glory painted on the Eastern air,
Of amorous sounding tones like passionate lyres,
And colors laughing richly their delight,
And reigning over all the color Red.
My memory bears engraved the strange Kremlin,
Of halls symbolic of the tiger will
Of Czarist instruments of mindless law.
Oh often now my heart throbs with the thrill,
When simply in that place I heard and saw
The human voice and presence of Lenin.
1937
The Neva moves majestically on,
The sun-rays playing on her breast at seven,
From her blue bosom all winter’s snow-slabs gone.
Now ripples curl where yesterday lay riven
Great silver oblongs chiselled by the hand
Of Spring that bellies through Earth’s happy womb,
To glad and flower the long, long pregnant land!
Where yesternight a veil of winter gloom
Shrouded the city’s splendid face,—today
All life rejoices for the First of May.
The Nevsky glows ablaze with regal Red,
Symbolic of the triumph and the rule
Of the new Power now lifting high its head
Above the place where once a sceptered fool
Was mounted by the plunderers of men
To awe the victims while they schemed and robbed.
The marchers shout again! again!! again!!!
The stones, where once the hearts of martyrs sobbed
Their blood, are sweet unto their feet today,
In celebration of the First of May.
Cities are symbols of man’s upward reach,
Man drawing near to man in close commune,
And mighty cities mighty lessons teach
Of man’s decay or progress, late or soon,
And many an iron-towered Babylon,
Beneath the quiet golden breath of Time
Has vanished like the snow under the sun,
Leaving no single mark in stone or rhyme
To flame the lifted heart of man today,
As Petrograd upon the First of May.
Oh many a thoughtful romance-seeking boy,
Slow-fingering the leaves of ancient glory,
Is stirred to rapture by the tales of Troy,
And each invigorate, vein-tingling story
Of Egypt and of Athens and of Rome,
Where slaves long toiled for knights and kings to reap.
But in the years, the wondrous years to come,
The heart of youth in every land will leap
For Russia that first made national the day—
The embattled workers’ day—the First of May.
Jerusalem is fading from men’s mind,
And sacred cities holding men in thrall,
Are crumbling in the new thought of mankind—
The pagan day, the holy day for all!
And Petrograd, the proud triumphant city,
The gateway to the strange, awakening East,
Where warrior-workers wrestled without pity
Against the power of magnate, monarch, priest—
World Fort of Struggle, hoist aloft today
The flaming standards of the First of May!
1923
Paris
I
The world has built a Paris to its image,
Of brazen lust and wild licentiousness,
Salome dancers nude of veils and fans,
Interpreting the thousand ways of love;
And having visioned that will nothing less
Than pagan paradise of courtesans
And cavaliers along the lovely grove,
Wonderful like all things seen through a mirage.
And Paris cynical and serpent-wise,
Uncoils her body to its sinuous length,
And charming those who never see below
The depths profound upon which rests her strength
Nor understand the fascinating glow,
The wisdom fathomed in her gleaming eyes.
Paris has never stormed my stubborn heart
And rushed like champagne sparkling to my head,
Whirling me round and round till I am spent
To fall down like a drunkard at her feet,
Because it is a city more like bread
Than wine and meet as solid nourishment,
To build the Frenchman and make his mind complete
And fit him for his civilizing part.
More than all cities Paris is a school,
With lessons priced that every one can pay,
But education non-compulsory,
With teachers at your service day by day:
Like London and New York no need to hurry,
Yet he who does not learn was born a fool.
circa 1934
London
The fog prevails above all in my mind,
Wrapping around me like a cold gray sheet,
And shutting out the city, which oppressed
My spirit even like Teutonic art in stone.
A city without light and without heat,
Whose color was like iron in my breast
And freezing through my body to the bone:
Oh blessed was the fog that veiled me blind!
But how could I, tropical African,
Who claim the sun as my authentic sire,
Find beauty in that chilling atmosphere?
Ancestral intellect could help me bear
A little while, but surely not admire
The civilization of the Englishman.
circa 1934
How like a fixed and fortressed rock she stands,
Cliff-featured arrogance against the world
Of change the striving human spirit demands!
Lofty Reaction! When shall she be hurled
From her pedestal proud, whence she sways power
Over the millions raped of strength and will,
And trained before her armored pride to cower,
Yet whose low murmurings she cannot still.
How like a rock against the tides of change
She rises up from out the Northern sea,
The universe a lottery in her range;
The waters billow round her angrily,
The castled lords entrench behind their walls,
But the mean multitude about her base,
Where rage the violent storms, the thunder falls,
Upon that rock can find no sheltered place.
The angry tempest will not lash in vain,
Against thy granite, arch conspirator,
Scheming to shackle men with the ancient chain.
After the slaves revolt, the distant roar
Tocsins thy plundered native multitude,
That reach out hungry for thine ancient crown,
Thine ancient titles, with strong hands and rude,
From thy high eminence to dash thee down.
1924
Morocco
Oh wistful and heartrending earth, oh land
Of colors singing symphonies of life!
Myself is like a stone upon my spirit,
Reluctant passing from your sunny shore.
Oh native colors,
With magic light!
Mysterious atmosphere whose elements,
Like hands inspired by a magnetic force,
Touching caressingly my inmost chords,
How strangely I was brought beneath your spell!
But willingly
A captive I
Within your sphere.
Oh friends, my friends! When Ramadan returns
And daily fast and feasting through the night,
With chants and music honey-dripping sweets
And fatmahs shaking their flamenco feet—
My thoughts will wing
On airy waves
With you to be.
Oh when the cannon sounds to break the fast,
The children chorus madly their relief,
And you together group to feast at last—
You’ll feel my hungry spirit there in your midst,
Released from me,
A prisoner,
To fly to you.
And when you go beneath the orange trees,
To mark and serenade the crescent growth,
With crimson lute and shivering mandolin,
And drop the scented blossoms in your cups
Oh make one tune,
One melody,
Of love for me!
Keeping your happy vigil through the night
With tales and music, whiling by the hours,
You may recall my joy to be with you
Until the watchers passed from house to house—
And bugle call
Proclaimed the day!
1937
Note of Harlem
Rich is the flavor of this Harlem street,
The dusk over the dark-warm scene is tender,
The murmuring of fruit-ripe throats is sweet
And gladly to the tumult I surrender.
A singular confusion fills my breast,
My feet are happy on this familiar ground
After long years to find a little rest,
My head in dizzy joy goes round and round.
Like veils removed at last from hidden places,
The mists lift from the dear, remembered sights
And I am seeing in their proper places,
The cherished haunts of Harlem days and nights.
The lines and colors are more manifold,
My senses quicken to appreciate
The new landmarks arisen midst the old,
The different signs and sounds that dominate.
But oh! I was reluctant coming back,
I felt like one expelled from heaven to hell,
To the arena packed of white-and-black,
America’s heart-breaking spectacle.
Yet though I feared to face this strange return,
Afraid that I could never again recapture,
These accents for which often I did yearn
And in my exile dote upon with rapture:
Returning I discovered happiness,
Though mingled with the thoughts of farewell pain;
Yet any pain was good that brought me this:
The joy of finding voice to sing again.
1934
Harlem
I
Transformed by colored lights a basement den,
With chairs and tables banked on either side,
And jammed within, young dark-skinned women and men,
Drinking and smoking, merry, vacant-eyed.
A Negro band, that scarcely seems awake,
Drones out half-heartedly a lazy tune,
While nimble, willing boys their orders take
And hurry to and from the near saloon.
And suddenly a happy, lilting note
Is struck, the walk and hop and trot begin,
Under the smoke upon foul air afloat;
Around the room the laughing figures spin
To sound of fiddle, drum and clarinet,
Dancing their world of shadows to forget.
II
It is best to sit and gaze; my heart then dances
To the lithe bodies gliding slowly by,
The amorous and inimitable glances
That subtly pass from roguish eye to eye,
The laughter gay like sounding silver ringing,
That fills the whole wide room from floor to ceiling,
A rush of rapture to my spirit bringing,
The deathless spirit of a race revealing,
Not one false step, no note that rings not true!
Unconscious even of the higher worth
Of their fine art, they lizard-like go through
The syncopated bars. Dead to the earth
And her harsh ways of menial toil and strife,
For them the dance is the great joy of life.
And yet these are the outcasts of the earth,
The race oppressed and scorned by mighty man.
How can they thus consent to joy and mirth
Who live beneath a world-eternal ban?
No faith is theirs, no shining ray of hope,
Except the martyr’s faith, the hope that death
Some day will free them from their narrow scope
And once more merge them with the infinite breath.
But, oh they dance with poetry in their eyes
Whose dreamy loveliness no sorrow dims,
And parted lips and eager, gleeful cries,
And perfect rhythm in their nimble limbs.
The gifts divine are theirs, music and laughter,
All other things, however great, come after.
1919
Lenox Avenue
The mummers mass in Lenox Avenue,
A Negro theater by night and day,
In accents strong and colors of every hue,
A race entire enacts its passionate play.
From pool-room and saloon the rich and rude
Vernacular of Harlem takes the air,
The young folk stroll by in contagious mood
Insouciant as if never knowing care
Meanwhile a white-and-black parade deploys
Its banners shouting for Scottsboro boys.
In cloying chords and simple melodies,
Notes old and modern classical and hot,
Duets and quintettes, choirs and symphonies,
The radios spit a language polyglot.
In restaurants and candy shops and bars,
While people take a bite or drink a beer,
A sentimental voice sings of the stars
Into the microphone while thousands cheer:
And Harlem sways its body dark and warm,
Enthralled, enraptured by the medley charm.
Here is a vaudeville that never stops!
The radios sound, the youngsters start to shake
Along the blocks, they execute neat hops,
Taking with music every step they make.
The subways swallow and disgorge the crowd,
The pavements stream its movement straight along,
The cabarets and dancing halls so loud
Entrancingly with laughter and with song,
Intoxicate my senses with the street,
To take the rhythm of Harlem’s moving feet.
1938
Black Belt Slummers
One dilettante, a prince of his profession,
Thinks Black Belt is a mine of finest ore,
Pure gold and bronze and copper to explore,
Desires, enamoured of his own obsession,
To write it up, a nice romantic story,
Of leopards loitering along the street,
And jungle maidens, sensuous and sweet,
Crowning the Black Belt in their sable glory.
An amateur praises a Negro maiden,
A kitchen creature of delightful mien,
Who scrubs the parquet like a haughty queen,
And proudly bears her tray with dishes laden.
He loves the background modern and bizarre,
She works against with such engaging spunk,
Comparing it like a great mound of junk
Where wonderfully shines a fallen star.
They’re all so exquisite! exclaims milady,
Reminding me of Uncle Tom of old,
Whose burdened body held a heart of gold,
His type made our American Arcady.
I like all things unlike myself and strange,
That’s why I think they’re agents of the devil,
Who want to bring all folk to the same level—
They love not Beauty who desire such change.
circa 1934
New York
Oh wonder steel and stone that make New York
A grandeur such as Egypt knew of old!
The free white mind soared daringly to work,
And obelisks prick the sky with spires of gold!
But oh the city shouts! A thousand signs,
Buildings and lots and shattered businesses,
And stuff too intimate for printed lines,
Clutched in the grip of dragon-clawed distress.
Pell-mell the frightened pawns of modern kings
Scour through the city to the market places,
To sell at any price their little things,
In trembling and with terror in their faces.
Fighting and raging, pressing to the wall
The derelicts against the barriers jammed,
When in the crush there was not room for all,
And some were cursed of men and by God damned.
For Sale! For Sale! Behold the riotous scramble
Of minions for investments safe-and-sound.
The army routed, while the captains gamble,
The bourses crack and crumble to the ground.
More goods for sale than purchasers can buy!
The city’s monster advertising cries
Its manufactures spreading piling high,
Weaving Manhattan’s glorious fantasies.
The radios spit. The air is charged with selling,
Even the empty puny words we utter:
Who’ll take a song, our hoisted signs are yelling,
To save the little poets from the gutter?
Oh we who have sometimes felt as free as air—
Mad poets drunk with sounds of drums and flutes,
Fooling ourselves that words were precious, rare—
Our thoughts, our dreams are little prostitutes.
circa 1934