October in the Railroad Earth

There was a little alley in San Francisco Back of the Southern Pacific station at Third and Townsend In redbrick of drowsy lazy afternoons With everybody at work in offices In the air you feel the impending rush of their commuter frenzy As soon they'll be charging en masse From market and Sansome buildings on foot and in buses and All well-dressed through workingman Frisco of walk up Truck drivers And even the poor grime be marked Third Street of lost bums Even Negros so hopeless and long left East And meanings of responsibility and try That now all they do is stand there spitting in the broken glass Sometimes 50 in one afternoon Against one wall at Third and Howard It is all these all these Millbrae and San Carlos Neat neck-tied producers and Commuters of America and steel civilization Rushing by with San Francisco chronicles and Green Call-Bulletins not even enough time to be disdainful They've got to catch 130, 132, 134, 136 all the way up to 146 'Til the time of evening supper in homes of the railroad earth When high in the sky the magic stars Ride above the following hotshot freight trains It's all in California, it's all a sea I swim out of it in afternoons of sun hot meditation in My jeans with head on handkerchief On brakeman's lantern or if not working on book I look up at blue sky of perfect lost purity And feel the warp of wood of old America beneath me And I have insane conversations with Negroes in Second-storey windows above and everything is pouring in The switching moves of boxcars in that little alley Which is so much like the alleys of Lowell and I hear far off in the sense of coming night That engine calling our mountains But it was that beautiful cut of clouds I could always see above the little S.P. alley Puffs floating by from Oakland Or the Gate of Marin to the north or San Jose south The clarity of Cal to break your heart It was the fantastic drowse and Drum hum of lum mum afternoon, nothing to do Old Frisco with end of land sadness The people, the alley full of trucks And cars of businesses nearabouts Nobody knew or far from cared who I was all my life 3,500 miles from birth All opened up And at last belonged to me in Great America Now it's night in Third Street The keen little neons And also yellow bulb lights of impossible-to-believe flops With dark ruined shadows moving Back of torn yellow shades Like a degenerate China with no money The cats in Annie's alley The flop comes on Moans, rolls, the street is loaded with darkness Blue sky above with stars hanging high over old hotel roofs And blowers of hotels moaning out dusts of interior The grime inside the word in mouths falling out tooth by tooth The reading rooms tick tock bigclock With creak chair and slant boards And old faces looking up over rimless spectacles Bought in some West Virginia or Florida Or Liverpool England pawnshop long before I was born And across rains they've come to the end of the land sadness End of the world gladness All your San Franciscos will have to fall eventually and burn again But I'm walking and one night A bum fell into the hole of the construction job Where they're tearing a sewer by day The husky Pacific and Electric youths in torn jeans Who work there often I think of going up to some of them like Say blond ones with wild hair and torn shirts and to say "You oughta apply for the railroad, it's much easier work You don't stand around the street all day and you get much more pay" But this bum fell in the hole, you saw his foot stick out A British MG also driven by some eccentric Once backed into that hole and As I came home from a long Saturday afternoon local to Hollister out of San Jose miles away across Verdurous fields of prune and juice joy Here's this British MG backed And legs up, wheels up into a pit and bums and Cops standing around right outside the coffee shop It was the way they fenced it but he never had the nerve to do it Due to the fact that he had no money and nowhere to go and Oh his father was dead And oh his mother was dead, and oh his sister was dead And oh his whereabout was dead, was dead But and then at that time also I used to lay in my room On long Saturday afternoons listening To Jumpin' George with my fifth of tokay, no tea And just under the sheets laughed to hear the crazy music "Mama, he treats your daughter mean Mama, Papa, and don't you come in here I'll kill you" etc Getting high by myself in room glooms And all wondrous knowing about the Negro The essential American Out there always finding his solace His meaning in the fellaheen street And not in abstract morality And even when he has a church you see the pastor out front Bowing to the ladies on the make You hear his great vibrant voice On the Sunday afternoon sidewalk full of sexual vibratos Saying, "Why yes ma'am but the gospel do say that man was Born of woman's womb" And no and so By that time I come crawling out of my warm sack and hit the street When I see the railroad ain't gonna call me 'til 5 a.m. Sunday morning probably For a local out of Bay Shore In fact always for a local out of Bay Shore And I go to the wail-bar of all the wild bars in the world The one and only Third-and-Howard And there I go in and drink with the madmen and if I get drunk I git The girl would come up to me in there one night I was there with Al Buckle and said to me "You wanna play with me tonight Jim?" And and I didn't think I I didn't think I had enough money And I told this to Charley Low and he laughed and said "How do you know she wanted money, always take the chance That she might be out just for love or just Out for love, you know what I mean, don't be a sucker" She was a good looking doll and she said "How would you like to ool your cool with me mon?" And I stood there like a jerk In fact bought drink, got drink drunk that night in the 299 Club I was hit by the proprietor, the band breaking up the fight Before I had a chance to decide to hit him back Which I didn't wanna do anyway And out on the street I tried to rush back in But they had locked the door and Were looking at me through the forbidden glass in the door With faces like undersea I should have played with her shurururururook dookie