Veracruz

Sit at a table in a street, in the shade of a cantina:

Drink a naranja, in the blue shadow,

In a street of Veracruz; the flail of sunlight

Pounding, pounding,

Pounding into the eyes, into the brain.

Drink a naranja in the shade, in a cantina

In the venerable city,

In stone-old Veracruz slouching on the Gulf of Mexico

Like a pock-marked ancient, asking alms

Of sailors home from the sea. . . .

City of the past, crumbling into dust of the past;

Looking through aged eyes into the future.

Drink a naranja and remember the hoof-beats of soldiers,

Clank of swords, clang of arms

Through a clatter of insolent parrots.

I sit at a table in the shadow, drinking a cubano,

Remembering the fern-hidden huts of peons deep in the

jungle-

Magical huts they are, hiding in beautiful veils;

Women they are,

Women with silver daggers hidden in fans.

I do not forget the daggers in the city of Veracruz,

Nor the sea,

Nor the heat-drums, in Veracruz. . . .

. . . Do you see rust on the tall cranes near the harbor?

Do you know decay of the flesh? Do you love bravado,

That runs on crazy legs in the dark streets

And leers through near-sighted eyes from dark corners

In cantinas?

Do you fear death, that rides on wild black mustangs

To the young men of Veracruz?

Go-ta-hell! Go-ta-hell! howl the sailors in a cantina.

Go-ta-hell! clatter green parrots-

And a glass falls and breaks in a million crinkles

On a stone floor.

The city of Veracruz awakes from her dust decay

And, Go-ta-hell! shrill the streets

And the wharf rats, squealing.

Night falls-a glass falls-a man falls,

Drunk on tequila.

The beggars will rifle his pockets.

And, Christ, squall the parrots, and

Christ! growl the sailors, This town

Gives me the willies, drives me to death, gripes me,

And I'll knife any worm-spined spick that tells me

The redwhiteandblue ain't the proudest land afloat!

. . . The blue Caribbean whispers on the shore-sands,

And the jungle is a blue-and-golden bird

Wading knee-deep in the silver moonlit water.