Steel-Mills: South Chicago

This red hush toppling over the sky,Wanders one step toward the starsAnd dies in a questioning shiver.The steel-mill chimneys fling their gaunt seekingA little distance into the redThat softly combs their smoky hair.The steel-mill chimneys only live at nightWhen crimson light makes love to themAnd star-light trickles through the red,Like glimpses of some far-off fairy tale.Throughout the day the steel-mill chimneys standRigidly within the wind-whirled glare:Only night can bring them supple straightness.

From the little, brown gate that does not see themBecause its eyes are blind with wooing soot,An endless stream of men scatters outInto the cool bewilderment of morning.Upon their lips a limply child-like surrenderCurves out to the light, as though they feltThe presence of an unassuming strangeness.The morning hides from their eyes:They walk on, in great strides,Like blind men swinging over a well-known scene.Their faces twitch with echoes of iron fists:Their faces hold a swarthy stuporLoosened by little fingers of morning lightUntil it droops into reluctant life.And then their eyes, made flat by night,Swell into a Madonna-like surpriseAt children trooping back in huge disguise.The oranges in lunch-room windows changeTo sleek suns dipped in sleepy light,And rounded tarts in china platesAre like red heart-beats, resting but not dead.A trolley-car speeds byAnd seems a strident lyric of motion.Wagons rumble down the streetLike drums enticing weariness to step....The hearts of these steel-striding menAscend and blend within their eyes,And yet, these men are unaware of this.They only feel a fluid reliefVoicing, in a clustered roar,The cries of struggling thoughts unshaped by words.But there are some who break forth from the rest.This old Hungarian strides alongAnd binds naïvely-winged prayer-sandalsUpon the heavy feet of shuffling loves.Gently, he plays with his beardAs though his fingers touched a woman’s hair.And this young Slav whose surly blasphemyCurls his face into a simple hate,Has taken iron into his laughAnd uses it to hew his stony mind.While this Italian whose deep olive skinShines like sunlight groping through dense leaves,Forgets his battered happinessAnd bows with mock grace to his shouting day.Beside him is a fellow-countrymanWalking aimless, dazed with joy of motion.Upon his face a glistening vacancyLights the mildly querying thoughtsThat seek each other but never meet.Behind him steps a stalwart PoleWhose rhythmic, stately insolenceTurns the sidewalk into a grey carpet,Grey as the shades that race across his faceAnd show the savage squalor of his soul.Night has broken her heart upon him,Only scarring his bitter smile.A street of little, jack-o’-lantern housesVeering into leering saloons,Where the night, a crazy child,Dips herself in sallow rougeAnd chases oaths and heavy mirthAnd even human beings:Where the smoky sadness of the steel-millsWanders hesitantly into deathAnd drops a ghostly blur upon this girl.Her numbly waxen, cherub faceEmerges gently from the doorway’s blacknessAs though the dark had given birth to it.And then the falling light revealsThat something of a village hangs about her:Something slumbering and ample.The doorway is too small to holdHer shoulders that are like a hill’s broad curvesDwindled in the distance....She is one of many earth-curved girlsWho listened to the insistent tinkleOf wind-winged music from a far-off land:Listened and knew notThat their own hearts faintly played.So she ran to this far phantom,Only finding it within herselfWhen the city’s sly fists rained upon it.Then once more she fledWith a dead heart whose restless pallorCrept to squalid wantonness, for refuge.And now she stands within this doorway,Uttering muffled innuendoesTo the drained men of her race.Yet, something of a village hangs about her:Something slumbering and ampleStealing from the earth curves of her shoulders.

The steel-mill workers straggle down this street,Clanging shut the doorways of their souls,And the sound rips their lips open.The steel-mill workers do not know of this:They only seek something that will sweetenThe dirt that has eaten into their fleshAnd change it to raw music.They straggle down this street,Their faces slack and oiled with amorousness.Like cats they play with their desires,Biting them with little laughsUntil the sallow houses draw them in.And then the night pursues their revelry:Echoes from the shut doors of their souls.

Three bent women and a childStoop before the steel-mill gateAs though the morning’s ghastly murmurWashed against them in a waveStiffening them into resisting curves.One is old and floridly misshapen.Years have melted out within her frame,Flooding her with lukewarm loves.The wrinkles on her flabby faceAre like a faded scrawl of painScattered by the flesh on which it rests.Her frayed shawl hanging unaware of herIs a symbol of her heart.The woman standing at her sideIs tall and like a slanting scarecrowColdly jerking in the morning’s glare.Only when she lifts a bony handTapping life against her face,Does the image disappear.Dead dreams dangle in her heart,Limply hanging from their rainbow sashes,And whenever one sash trembles,Then, she lifts a gnarled hand to her faceAnd tastes a moment of departing life.Near her stands a slimly rigid womanWith an iron fear upon her bones.A worn strait-jacket of linesCuts the dying youth upon her face.The slender child beside her,Buried within staidly murky clothes,Glances frightenedly up at her mother:Glances as one who dances to a gateAnd fumbles for a latch that hides itself.Then from the rusty-reveried steel-mill gateAn endless stream of men scatter outInto the cool bewilderment of morning.Upon their lips a limply child-like surrenderCurves out to the light, as though they feltThe presence of an unassuming strangeness.