by Paul Blackburn
On the farm it never mattered;
behind the barn, in any grass, against
any convenient tree; the
woodshed in winter, in a corner
if it came to that.
But in a city of eight million one
stands on the defensive
In the West 59th Street parking lot
it has long since sunk into the cinders.
But in the shallow doorway of
a shop on Third Avenue, between
the dark and the streetlight,
it was the trail of the likewise drinking-man who preceded me
that gave me courage
lo que me did valor.
From:
The New American Poetry 1945-1960, Donald Allen
Copyright ©:
University of California Press (1999)
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