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| “The Rock” is constantly repainted with new graffiti. Here it is this morning. It’s probably different by now. |
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| A look into Graffiti Alley in Ann Arbor from 2022. |
My search continues for poetry that works into my life. Thinking of the two places in our town that encourage graffiti artists to express themselves — “The Rock” and Graffiti Alley — I looked for a poem about graffiti, and found a poem titled “Graffiti.” I’m sharing this post with other lovers of street art who post at Sami’s Monday Murals.
I like its description of “looping black script that no one can read.”
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| In Ann Arbor a few years ago: “looping black script.” |
Here are a few lines from “Graffiti,” and a link so that you can read the entire work if you like:
Graffiti
Kitty Goes Kommando and the Goldman Rats — Phooey!
That blue scaffolding holds up the sky. Who did we think
we were padlocking in, or out? Give me that huge
looping black script no one can read, a secret glyph,
and just where someone has smashed the window, Jesus
the Way the Truth the Life and a dented aluminum frame.
…
Hole in the wall, rose sound-hole,
ribbed sounding board — always from fissures and gaps
melody strains as trains thunderclank across
the girdered overpass, a siren keens, and a solitary man
ambles past amputated acacias fisting out with leaves.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2014)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/57057/graffiti
