winter
TRANSCRIPT
WinterAuthor(s): Denis JohnsonSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Fall, 1974), p. 26Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20158296 .
Accessed: 18/06/2014 03:34
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WINTER
On the streets, which have gutters, in the shadows of doorways, at
bus stops, at this moment
and yesterday, before the bars, their breath
excluded in great clouds, turning from the wind
to spit and laugh horribly
at the life standing up inside them
with such pain as
loneliness permits, and the weather,
turning to each other
with jokes and lies, with the baggage and garbage of their humanness as if one
they held it toward would take it and thank them
is us, all of us, all dragged by the legs upstream like poor stooges sunk to drowning for a living.
On Clinton St. the bars explode with the salt smell of us like the sea, and the tide
of rock and roll music, live
humans floating on it
out over the crimes of the night. How
unlike such outwardness the clenching back
of a man into himself is, several of us are our own fists
There! emphasizing on the tabletop.
26 Denis Johnson
This content downloaded from 62.122.73.250 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 03:34:39 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions