In Back Of The Real Poem by Allen Ginsberg

In Back Of The Real

Rating: 3.0


railroad yard in San Jose
I wandered desolate
in front of a tank factory
and sat on a bench
near the switchman's shack.

A flower lay on the hay on
the asphalt highway
--the dread hay flower
I thought--It had a
brittle black stem and
corolla of yellowish dirty
spikes like Jesus' inchlong
crown, and a soiled
dry center cotton tuft
like a used shaving brush
that's been lying under
the garage for a year.

Yellow, yellow flower, and
flower of industry,
tough spiky ugly flower,
flower nonetheless,
with the form of the great yellow
Rose in your brain!
This is the flower of the World.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Michael Walker 27 July 2019

A magnificent poem, which I taught to college students, who were not used to such imagery, ' spikes like Jesus' inchlong/ crown'. They liked the poem a whole lot, like me.

1 0 Reply
M Asim Nehal 30 December 2015

Nicely written poem, I liked it,

1 0 Reply
Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Newark, New Jersey
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