We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky.

"Stories of the Street"

The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh.
The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas,
And I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose,
Yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.
I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come,
The cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone.
But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk,
All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us?
And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?
Why are the armies marching still that were coming home to me?
O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel,
You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.
The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask
The nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass.
And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite,
And one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night.
O come with me my little one, we will find that farm
And grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm.
And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am,
O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb.
With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world.
We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky,
And lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

I only knew that I and my many mothers had been lost in sky, water, and the galaxy, as we rested on a planet so small it was invisible to the turnings of other worlds. (p179)

We call out into the distance... Less than a pearl in a sea of stars, we are a lost island in the shadows.

I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.

Little feet of children,
two tiny suffering jewels,
how can people pass
and not see you!

Look, here are we on this starry night staring into space, and I must say I feel as small as dust lying down here.

I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?

Look at your eyes. They are small,
but they see enormous things.

As the number plates drift by, my restless scanning eyes search for you.

But most of all, I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they are going. Sometimes I even go to Fun parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on the edge of town at midnight and the police don't care as long as they're insured. As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy. Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what? People don't talk about anything.

All of us get lost in the darkness, dreamers learn to steer by the stars.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Man and woman cease to be humans
once they get lost into crowds.

Lost, so small amid that dark, hands grown cold, body image fading down corridors of television sky.