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...my bloddy mug
pouring, my olive-branch jacket saved
from cuts and tears,
I crawled four flights upstairs.
Sprawled in the gutter, I
remember a few watchers waved
loudly, and one kid's mother shouting
like "Jackie" or "Terry,"
"now that's enough!"
It's nothing really.
They don't get enough love.

You know they wouldn't kill
you. Just playing rough,
like young Americans will.
Still it taught me somthing
about love. If it's so tough,
forget it....Read more of this...

...uashed with shops
criss-cross of customers
a rush of people nightwards
a white woman
striding like a cliff
dirt - goats in the gutter
crunched beggars
a small to breed a fungus
cafes with open mouths
men like broken teeth
or way back in the dark
like tonsils

an air of shapeless threat
fluffs in our pulse
a boundary crossed
the rules are not the same
brushed by eyes
the touch is silent
silence breeds
we feel the breath of fury
(soon to roar)
retreat within our skins
return to...Read more of this...

...are people who dash of weird, wild, 
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility, 
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter. 

Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres 
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul 
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth. 

It is probably on account of this 
that people who have genius 
do not pay their board, as a general thing. 

Geniuses are very singular. 

If you see a young man w...Read more of this...

...I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who in a cafe sat,
And one was small and crapulous, and one was large and fat;
And one was eaten up with vice and verminous at that.

The first he spoke of secret sins, and gems and perfumes rare;
And velvet cats and courtesans voluptuously fair:
"Who is the Sybarite?" I asked. They answered: "Baudelaire."

The s...Read more of this...

...

Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashõ and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,

The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. "Bashõ"

He named himself, "Banana Tree": banana
After the plant some grateful students gave him,
Maybe in appreciation of his guidance

Threading a long night through the rules and channels
Of their collaborative ...Read more of this...

...e
Some monster of an auctioneer
 Might sell his sticks and clothes:
I'd rather want for bread and butter
 Than see them in the gutter.

A silly, soft old thing am I,
 But oh them kiddies four!
I guess I'll make a raisin pie
 And leave it at their door . . .
Some Sunday, dears, you'll share my dream,--
 Fried chicken and ice-cream....Read more of this...

...coarsely.
 "Then we'll fight it out in the dark," say I.

So we grip and we slip and we trip and wrestle
 There in the gutter of No Man's Land;
And I feel my nails in his wind-pipe nestle,
 And he tries to gouge, but I bite his hand.
And he tries to squeal, but I squeeze him tighter:
 "Now," I say, "I can kill you fine;
But tell me first, you Teutonic blighter!
 Have you any children?" He answers: "Nein."

Nine! Well, I cannot kill such a father,
 So I tie his...Read more of this...

...one knows 
whether we think good 
or evil. 

    Meanwhile, 
the old man who goes about 
gathering dog-lime 
walks in the gutter 
without looking up 
and his tread 
is more majestic than 
that of the Episcopal minister 
approaching the pulpit 
of a Sunday. 
    These things 
astonish me beyond words....Read more of this...

...left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.”
So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with b...Read more of this...

...y to versify.
Yea, I was doomed to be a failure
(Old Browning rhymes that last with "pale lure"):
And even starving in the gutter,
My macaronics I would utter.

Then in a poor, cheap book I crammed,
And to the public maw I tossed
My bitter Dirges of the Damned,
My Lyrics of the Lost.
"Let carping critic flay and flout
My Ditties of the Down and Out -
"There now," said I, "I've done with verse,
My love, my weakness and my curse."

Then lo! (As I would fain beli...Read more of this...

...lvered with glitter from the shingles, cling-
ing like starlings beneath the eaves.
Even the leftover carats of tar in the gutter, so black they seemed to suck 
the light out of the air.
By nightfall kids had come across them: every sidewalk on the block was 
scribbled with obscenities and hearts....Read more of this...

...olden wine;
 Its fever and its frolic and its fun;
The old life with its din, its laughter and its sin --
 And chuck me in the gutter when it's done.

Ah, well! it's past and gone, and the memory is wan,
 That conjures up each old familiar face;
And here by fortune hurled, I am dead to all the world,
 And I've learned to lose my pride and keep my place.
My ways are hard and rough, and my arms are strong and tough,
 And I hew the dizzy pine till darkness falls;
And som...Read more of this...

...ll;
 They crowd around as buzzards at a feast,
Then when his poke is empty they boost him from the hall,
 And spurn him in the gutter like a beast.

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's painting red the town;
 Behind he leaves a trail of yellow dust;
In a whirl of senseless riot he is ramping up and down;
 There's nothing checks his madness and his lust.
And soon the word is passed around--it travels like a flame;
 They fight to clutch his hand and call him friend,
Th...Read more of this...

...red by street, lane and hall, 
"The trail of the serpent was over them all." 
A poor little child knocked out stiff in the gutter 
Proclaimed that the scapegoat was bred for a "butter". 
The bill-sticker's pail told a sorrowful tale, 
The scapegoat had licked it as dry as a nail; 
He raced through their houses, and frightened their spouses, 
But his latest achievement most anger arouses, 
For while they were searching, and scratching their craniums, 
One little Ben Ou...Read more of this...

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