No job
No woman
No house
No city
The young man walks fast by himself
through the crowd that thins into the night streets;
feet are tired from hours of walking;
eyes are greedy for warm curve of faces;
blood tingles with wants;
mind is a beehive of hopes buzzing and stinging.
The young man walks by himself searching
through the crowd with greedy eyes;
greedy ears taut to hear; by himself, alone.
The streets are empty. People have packed into subways,
climbed into streetcar and buses;
in the station they've scampered for suburban trains;
they've filtered into lodgings and tenement, gone up in elevators into apartment-houses.
From the river comes the deep rumbling whistle of a steamboat leaving dock. A tug hoots far way.
The young man walks by himself,
fast but not fast enough, far but not far enough.
He must catch the last subway, the streetcar, the bus,
run up the gangplanks of all the steamboats,
register at all the hotels, work in the cities,
answer the want-ads, learn the trades, take up the jobs,
live in all the boarding-houses, sleep I all the beds.
One bed is not enough.
At night, head swimming with wants, he wants, he walk by himself alone.
No job, No woman, No house, No city.
_
_
_
_
_
-John dos Passos- ,
Usa, 1938.