Graffiti Poem

“The Rock” is constantly repainted with new graffiti. Here it is this morning. It’s probably different by now.

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.”

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

BY ROSANNA WARREN

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