Quotes about alleys, page 20
German
being the German kid in the 20's in Los Angeles
was difficult.
there was much anti-German feeling then,
a carry-over from World War 1.
gangs of kids chased me through the neighborhood
yelling, 'Hieneie! Hieneie! Hienie!'
they never caught me.
I was like a cat.
I knew all the paths through brush and alleys.
I scaled 6-foot back fences in a flash and was off through
backyards and around blocks
and onto garage roofs and other hiding places.
then too, they didn't really want to catch me.
they were afraid I might bayonet them
or gouge out their eyes.
this went on for about 18 months
then all of a sudden it seemed to stop.
I was more or less accepted(but never really)
which was all right with me.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Bukowski
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At Penshurst
Had Sacharissa lived when mortals made
Choice of their deities, this sacred shade
Had held an alter to her power, that gave
The peace and glory which these alleys have;
Embroidered so with flowers where she stood,
That it became a garden of a wood.
Her presence has such more than human grace
That it can civilize the rudest place;
And beauty too, and order, can impart,
Where nature ne'er intended it, nor art.
The plants acknowledge this, and her admire
No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre;
If she sit down, with tops all towards her bowed,
They round about her into arbors crowd;
Or if she walk, in even ranks they stand,
Like some well marshaled and obsequious band.
Amphion so made stones and timber leap
Into fair figures from a confused heap;
And in the symmetry of her parts is found
A power like that of harmony in sound.
[...] Read more
poem by Edmund Waller
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Ibrahim's tale
Ibrahim
Ibrahim was a shoemaker
in that Persian land afar
where wisest men practice crafts
in side-alleys without name
and teach with stories
One day, Ibrahim was overcome
by happiness beyond all belief
while the sun moved from there to here
He told his friend, who said
you look the same to me
He went to the doctor who said
we’d better keep an eye on that,
it might need an X-ray
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Waiting Room
As I lay, pensively, dying
Beneath the seething graze of the sun,
In a metaphorical metamorphism,
I found myself, in films, meandering
Like a white eccentric and fictional lion
Dashing through the endless pitch
Hollowness of an ornate forest
The insipid beast teemed with fear
And not of valiance, as in the label
In this pocket of a gyratory cul-de-sac
The ghosts, glacial and searing,
Runs along with my buoyant feet
Their wails struck the barricades
Of the looming myrtle trees
And an echolalia came to life
In its corporeal form, a wintry
Pang that gnawed upon my chest
And I ran faster, like a frenzied fiend
‘Till I saw an opalescent stranger
With a lamp on his rooted feet
[...] Read more
poem by Norman Santos
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What Women Wants?
Written by: Wilfred Charles Mellers Tuesday, April 1,2008
Women say they are looking for a nice guy
But yet they always pass me by
Is it that they don’t try?
Or is it that I am an ugly guy, why?
Is it that glassy look upon my face?
Do you feel you have to use your mace?
Am I an alien not of this earth?
Or is it that I am from foreign birth?
I am not the devil’s seed
But I just might be what you need
See me, I am the shadow on the wall
I am not too thick and not too tall
Honest, faithful, loyal I have always been
Your heart is the prize I want to win
I may not be the knight in armor
[...] Read more
poem by Wilfred Mellers
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The Song of Kanthil Flowers
perhaps my words are ragged
for love always never ragged
for years we chatted such as
the can sound which was kicked by the legs idly
in blind alleys clogged, the silence channel
the sound of the cat's mouth or fight because of lust
during the nights with expectantly
once upon time I picked kanthil flowers, want and want
i embed in your ear
or stringing gori leaves and I made a crown on your head
to lullaby of bankruptcy from full moon to full moon
although this hand was shaking and had trouble reaching
tired of soluble that prey
so where else wanted sown
to the cry earth? ?
create an extinct man in civilization
or in ditches garbage every day we meet
hearts are torn whether you like the wind go?
probably not easily met kanthil flowers
such as courtship
[...] Read more
poem by Imam Setiaji Ronoatmojo
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The Effects of Spring on Nature
See where the winding vale its lavish stores,
Irriguous, spreads. See, how the lily drinks
The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass,
In fair profusion, decks. Long let us walk,
Where the breeze blows from yon extended field
Of blossom'd beans. Arabia cannot boast
A fuller gale of joy, than, liberal, thence
Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravish'd soul.
Nor is the mead unworthy of thy foot,
Full of fresh verdure and unnumber'd flowers,
The negligence of nature, wide and wild;
Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreads
Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.
Here their delicious task the fervent bees,
In swarming millions, tend: around, athwart,
Through the soft air, the busy nations fly,
Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube,
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul;
And oft, with bolder wing, they soaring dare
The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows,
[...] Read more
poem by James Thomson
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Melody In A Restaurant
The cigarette smoke loops and slides above us,
Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes.
You strike a match and stare upon the flame.
The tiny firelight leaps in your eyes a moment
And dies away as silently as it came.
This melody, you say, has certain voices—
They rise like nereids from a river, singing,
Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again.
Wherever you go you bear this river with you:
A leaf falls, and it flows, and you have pain.
So says the tune to you—but what to me ?
What to the waiter, as he pours your coffee?
The violinist who suavely draws his bow ?
That man, who folds his paper, overhears it.
A thousand dreams revolve and fall and flow.
Someone there is who sees a virgin stepping
Down marble stairs to a deep tomb of roses:
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The House Of Dust: Part 03: 05: Melody In A Restaurant
The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us,
Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes;
You strike a match and stare upon the flame.
The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment,
And dwindles away as silently as it came.
This melody, you say, has certain voices—
They rise like nereids from a river, singing,
Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again.
Wherever you go you bear this river with you:
A leaf falls,—and it flows, and you have pain.
So says the tune to you—but what to me?
What to the waiter, as he pours your coffee,
The violinist who suavely draws his bow?
That man, who folds his paper, overhears it.
A thousand dreams revolve and fall and flow.
Some one there is who sees a virgin stepping
Down marble stairs to a deep tomb of roses:
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Passage
Where the cedar leaf divides the sky
I heard the sea.
In sapphire arenas of the hills
I was promised an improved infancy.
Sulking, sanctioning the sun,
My memory I left in a ravine,-
Casual louse that tissues the buck-wheat,
Aprons rocks, congregates pears
In moonlit bushels
And wakens alleys with a hidden cough.
Dangerously the summer burned
(I had joined the entrainments of the wind).
The shadows of boulders lengthened my back:
In the bronze gongs of my cheeks
The rain dried without odour.
'It is not long, it is not long;
See where the red and black
[...] Read more
poem by Harold Hart Crane
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