I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
----
About "Acquainted with the Night"
Perhaps the foremost American poet, Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874 but spent much of his life in New England. His "Acquainted with the Night" first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and was published in 1928 in his collection West-Running Brook. Written in iambic pentameter, the sonnet-length poem uses a "terza rima" rhyme scheme (aba bcb cdc dad aa). Popularized by Dante, the scheme is popular in Italian but rarely used in English.
On its face, the poem depicts a narrator strolling the streets of a city, alone. Although evocative in its realistic details (I have passed by the watchman on his beat/ And dropped my eyes), "Acquainted with the Night" can also be read allegorically, as a poet confessing to his familiarity with the "night" of melancholy.
“A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden, 1913-1980
© 1966 by Robert Hayden, from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden, 1913-1980
© 1966 by Robert Hayden, from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden
"The Flowerburgers" by Richard Brautigan
Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, “Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it.”
Baudelaire would give
them a flowerburger
instead and the people
would say, “What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?”
About "The Flowerburgers"
"The Flowerburgers is part 4 of Richard Brautigan's series The Galilee Hitch-Hiker. The Galilee Hitch-Hiker is a single poem in nine numbered and differently titled parts. Each features a fictional story about Charles Baudelaire, the 19th-century French poet maudit. In part 1, Baudelaire picks up Jesus hitch-hiking on his way to Golgotha. In later section he drinks with a San Francisco wino, buys a jeweled cat, and smokes opium at a baseball game. In part 8 "Baudelaire went/ to the insane asylum/ disguised as a/ psychiatrist./ He stayed there/ for two months/ and when he left,/ the insane asylum/ loved him so much/ that it followed/ him all over/ California,/ and Baudelaire/ laughed when the/ insane asylum/ rubbed itself/ up against his/ leg like a/ strange cat." A notation at end of poem series states "San Francisco February 1958."
The Galilee Hitch-Hiker was first published in May 1958 by White Rabbit Press in a limited run of 200 copies. It was Brautigan's second poetry book publication. All nine parts of The Galilee Hitch-Hiker were collected and reprinted in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster (1968).
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, “Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it.”
Baudelaire would give
them a flowerburger
instead and the people
would say, “What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?”
About "The Flowerburgers"
"The Flowerburgers is part 4 of Richard Brautigan's series The Galilee Hitch-Hiker. The Galilee Hitch-Hiker is a single poem in nine numbered and differently titled parts. Each features a fictional story about Charles Baudelaire, the 19th-century French poet maudit. In part 1, Baudelaire picks up Jesus hitch-hiking on his way to Golgotha. In later section he drinks with a San Francisco wino, buys a jeweled cat, and smokes opium at a baseball game. In part 8 "Baudelaire went/ to the insane asylum/ disguised as a/ psychiatrist./ He stayed there/ for two months/ and when he left,/ the insane asylum/ loved him so much/ that it followed/ him all over/ California,/ and Baudelaire/ laughed when the/ insane asylum/ rubbed itself/ up against his/ leg like a/ strange cat." A notation at end of poem series states "San Francisco February 1958."
The Galilee Hitch-Hiker was first published in May 1958 by White Rabbit Press in a limited run of 200 copies. It was Brautigan's second poetry book publication. All nine parts of The Galilee Hitch-Hiker were collected and reprinted in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster (1968).
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