GALLUP
by Peter Marin
Where the town stops, my life begins.
To the east, low twilit buttes.
To the west, white snowy peaks.
In my heart, a vacancy beyond belief.
San Diego
by Peter Marin
Bring my slippers, Mother,
and let me sit in silence,
tired of my wandering
and sick to death of violence.
Bring my slippers, Mother,
as darkness fills the treetops,
and I will tell you stories
as meaningful as Aesop’s.
Bring my slippers, Mother,
and listen close beside me
to how throughout my country
men punished or reviled me.
Bring my slippers, Mother,
and we’ll whisper close together,
far from the cruelties of men
and God’s cold winter weather.
Men in Blue
by Peter Marin
Be good, little darling,
or the men in blue
some cold night
will come seeking you,
stamping out your fire,
ripping down your tent,
destroying all you own
in the name of the State.
Be good, little darling,
or the men in blue,
some cold night
will come seeking you,
trussing up your wrists,
twisting back your arm,
taking you to prison
just for trying to
stay warm.
THE COPS
by Peter Marin
Let the cops come, man,
like the fuckin’ mad gestapo,
tearin’ down our tents,
rippin’ our cardboard houses,
dumping our drum-fires
into the midnight streets.
Let the dumb fuckers come
knockin’ heads, breakin’ ribs,
pilin’ us into their vans
and takin’ the shit we own
straight out to the dump —
where else does it belong?
We started so many times
buildin’ a world from scratch
what the fuck difference
if we gotta do it again —
puttin’ up our tents,
erectin’ cardboard houses,
buildin’ our drum-fires
to warm the midnight streets?
We got nothin’ else to do.
We got nowhere else to go.
The god-damned earth
belongs to us.
The Coats
by Peter Marin
Let each man with two coats
explain to the mirror
why God should not punish him
while others have none —
freezing now, and snow falling,
and those without coats
huddled on city corners
or crumpled in doorways
or standing, hands out,
at the concert-hall door.
Didn’t they fight your wars?
Didn’t they pave your roads?
Didn’t they tend you gently
when injured at the hospital
you ached for human touch?
Night after night, they die.
Night after terrible night
they sigh themselves away
in dumpsters, in burnt buildings,
in the back seats of junked cars
on the far edge of your cities.
They crowd your bedrooms in the dark,
they huddle under your silk sheets,
unseen, they bend over each sleeper
and touch with bloodied palms
this face, that breast,
given the task by a god
who wants no one to forget.
When, at night, you examine yourself,
there they are, in the mirror,
their pale faces the sky,
their tears the shimmering stars,
their trembling arms extended —
ah, you know whose arms those are!
Midnight
by Peter Marin
Midnight bought the farm,
Stone Eddie cashed in,
Red Sunshine is down —
the word comes out along
the grapevine like drums
in the jungle or a card
carried on a silver dish.
Each time you hear it
a tree crashes down —
God’s hand laying low
every man I ever knew.
Whole towns have dried up
with men the wild beasts
pressed to barbed wire
thirsty and spent —
a cheap hotel torn down,
a lunchroom boarded up,
an old pawn-shop closed.
What’s left for us, the zoo?
Forty years on the road
you get an elephant’s hide,
but when last week I saw
that down by the river
they’d paved the jungle over
I knelt on the bank and I cried.
Ark of Loneliness
by Peter Marin
Filing in, one by one,
as if into an ark
of loneliness, out of the rain,
the shelter, its gray
emptiness anchored
at the bottom by green cots
arranged in rows, boots
tucked under, men asleep,
rocked on the surface
of watery dreams by a
great storm never to end.
Not One
by Peter Marin
The poor line the hall
on your way to the bathroom.
They wait at the foot of the stairs
when you go for the mail.
They’re in the backseat
backing out of the driveway
on your way to the store.
And they dine beside you
unspoken at the table
waiting patiently for bread.
They never put out their hands.
They keep their eyes shut.
They hold up no signs.
But crossing the streets
you will know them from dreams
though their faces turn away.
There is not one who does not see you:
you must change your life.
Once All of Them Boys
by Peter Marin
Here is the drunk man,
here is the one-legged man,
here is the man talking to himself
in the voice of another, a master.
Here is the drugged man,
here is the man without legs —
four wheels and leathered fists.
Here is the naked man in a doorway,
here is the huddled man in a womb,
here is a bogey man, frightened.
Here is a man adrift on a raft,
here is a man marooned on an island,
here is an infantry-man left to die
here is an old man left on an ice floe.
Here is a learned man, mindless.
Here is a dancing man, lame.
Here is a working man, idle.
Here is a kind man, gone bad.
Here are the men, once all of them boys
hopeful of futures, anxious for joys,
now asleep in a subway
with its dirt and its noise.
The Babies
by Peter Marin
It’s the babies, the babies,
the babies — the streets by day
the shelter at night
and the kids squabbling and no
school and the five of us
place to place hour by hour
walking and sitting
and waiting to eat.
It’s what breaks your heart and
your back aches and legs give out
one in your arms
another on your shoulders
two of them tugging at your hands.
It’s like a long march
a forced journey
the Israelites crossing the desert —
so hot in the sun
you think you’ll faint
so cold at dusk you think you’ll die
and the shelter miles away
and hours before it opens
and no sweaters for the kids
and all of them crying I want I want
and you’re always saying
no no no no no no no no
so that it gets to be a kind of song
one no for each time
your foot comes down
trying for luck not to
step on the cracks
DETROIT
by Peter Marin
May they blaze, golden
in Jerusalem’s light,
burning as if the hair
on God’s beckoning arm
had burst into wheat
in whole fields aflame,
as if time was theirs,
as if the great fires
of love repressed
swept across thought,
as if eyes were hands,
as if need were touch,
as if loss were gain,
as if hope were have,
as if from the loins
of dream came truth —
theirs the brute pain,
theirs the bright sin,
theirs the bent sign
of love twisted and saved,
theirs the land taken,
theirs the soul given,
theirs the coming and gone,
the woods yellow and green,
the fields open and full
on the first and final days
of the rest of their lives
driven from exile into Eden.
Bless them now, Father,
in their loneliness;
forgive them, Mother,
in their sorrow.
Set their sad tables,
make their last beds,
open the shut gates
that all may come in.
May the heavens be an ear
for their stories untold;
in times past and to come
grant them justice and bread.
The Shelter
by Peter Marin
Women and kids to one side,
men to the other, intake workers
weeding out the drunks and bums —
makes you think of the camps.
You been here before?
You promise to work?
Can you prove who you are?
It’s like crossing a border,
it’s like entering heaven,
as the keepers of the gate,
with blank implacable eyes,
decide who lives, who dies.
SERENADE
by Peter Marin
No theory! Only
the act of compassion
repeated again and again
brings God into the world.
Here he is, his hand out, or
badly playing a battered clarinet,
bucket beside him on the street.
Hey bud, ya gotta buck?
It’s a ticket to the boneyard.
It’s the price of living in America.
It’s the last chance you have
to make it in the back door
of heaven. Hey, take it, bro!
And the song he is playing,
I’m Gonna Buy a Paper Doll,
drifts over the empty streets.