A Pushcart at the Curb

by John Dos Passos

II

Padding lunge of a camel's stride
turning the sharp purple flints. A man sings:

Breast deep in the dawn
a queen of the east;
the woolen folds of her robe
hang white and straight
as the hard marble columns
of the temple of Jove.

A thousand days
the pebbles have scuttled
under the great pads of my camels.

A thousands days
like bite of sour apples
have been bitter with desire in my mouth.

A thousand days
of cramped legs flecked
with green slobber of dromedaries.

At the crest of the road
that transfixes the sun
she awaits
me lean with desire
with muscles tightened
by these thousand days
pallid with dust
sinewy
naked before her.

Padding lunge of a camel's stride
over the flint-strewn hills. A man sings:

I have heard men sing songs
of how in scarlet pools
in the west in purpurate mist
that bursts from the sun trodden
like a grape under the feet of darkness
a woman with great breasts
thighs white like wintry mountains
bathes her nakedness.

I have lain biting my cheeks
many nights with ears murmurous
with the songs of these strange men.
My arms have stung as if burned
by the touch of red ants with anguish
to circle strokingly
her bulging smooth body.
My blood has soured to gall.
The ten toes of my feet are hard
as buzzards' claws from the stones
of roads, from clambering
cold rockfaces of hills.
For uncountable days' journeys
jouncing on the humps of camels
iron horizons have swayed
like the rail of a ship at sea
mountains have tossed like wine
shaken hard in a wine cup.

I have heard men sing songs
of the scarlet pools of the sunset.

Two men, bundled pyramids of brown
abreast, bow to the long slouch
of their slowstriding camels.
Shrilly the yellow man sings:

In the courts of Han
green fowls with carmine tails
peck at the yellow grain
court ladies scatter
with tiny ivory hands,
the tails of the fowls
droop with multiple elegance
over the wan blue stones
as the hands of courtladies
droop on the goldstiffened silk
of their angular flower-embroidered dresses.

In the courts of Han
little hairy dogs
are taught to bark twice
at the mention of the name of Confucius.

The twittering of the women
that hop like silly birds
through the courts of Han
became sharp like little pins
in my ears, their hands in my hands
rigid like small ivory scoops
to scoop up mustard with
when I had heard the songs
of the western pools where the great queen
is throned on a purple throne
in whose vast encompassing arms
all bitter twigs of desire
burst into scarlet bloom.

Padding lunge of the camel's stride
over flint-strewn hills. The brown man sings:

On the house-encumbered hills
of great marble Rome
no man has ever counted the columns
no man has ever counted the statues
no man has ever counted the laws
sharply inscribed in plain writing
on tablets of green bronze.

At brightly lit tables
in a great brick basilica
seven hundred literate slaves
copy on rolls of thin parchment
adorned by seals and purple bows
the taut philosophical epigrams
announced by the emperor each morning
while taking his bath.

A day of rain and roaring gutters
the wine-reeking words of a drunken man
who clenched about me hard-muscled arms
and whispered with moist lips against my ear
filled me with smell and taste of spices
with harsh panting need to seek out the great
calm implacable queen of the east
who erect against sunrise holds in the folds
of her woolen robe all knowledge of delight
against whose hard white flesh my flesh
will sear to cinders in a last sheer flame.

Among the house-encumbered hills
of great marble Rome
I could no longer read the laws
inscribed on tablets of green bronze.
The maxims of the emperor's philosophy
were croaking of toads in my ears.
A day of rain and roaring gutters
the wine-reeking words of a drunken man:
... breast deep in the dawn
a queen of the east.

The camels growl and stretch out their necks,
their slack lips jiggle as they trot
towards a water hole in a pebbly torrent bed.

The riders pile dry twigs for a fire
and gird up their long gowns to warm
at the flame their lean galled legs.

Says the yellow man:

You have seen her in the west?

Says the brown man:

Hills and valleys
stony roads.
In the towns
the bright eyes of women
looking out from lattices.
Camps in the desert
where men passed the time of day
where were embers of fires
and greenish piles of camel-dung.

You have seen her in the east?

Says the yellow man:

Only red mountains and bare plains,
the blue smoke of villages at evening,
brown girls bathing
along banks of streams.

I have slept with no woman
only my dream.

Says the brown man:

I have looked in no woman's eyes
only stared along eastward roads.

They eat out of copper bowls beside the fire in silence.
They loose the hobbles from the knees of their camels
and shout as they jerk to their feet.
The yellow man rides west.
The brown man rides east.

Their songs trail among the split rocks of the desert.

Sings the yellow man:

I have heard men sing songs
of how in the scarlet pools
that spurt from the sun trodden
like a grape under the feet of darkness
a woman with great breasts
bathes her nakedness.

Sings the brown man:

After a thousand days
of cramped legs flecked
with green slobber of dromedaries
she awaits
me lean with desire
pallid with dust
sinewy
naked before her.

Their songs fade in the empty desert.