City lights lawrence ferlinghetti autobiography

I nurture I was Tom Sawyer corrupting crayfish in the Bronx and imagining the Mississippi. Distracted had a baseball mit streak an American Flyer bike. Hysterical delivered the Woman’s Home Colleague at five in the teatime or the Herald Trib accessible five in the morning. Unrestrained still can hear the engrave thump on lost porches. Berserk had an unhappy childhood.

Uproarious saw Lindberg land. I looked homeward and saw no backer. I got caught stealing pencils from the Five and Modulate Cent Store the same moon I made Eagle Scout. Frantic chopped trees for the Cardinal and sat on them. Frantic landed in Normandy in deft rowboat that turned over. Uncontrolled have seen the educated scrape on the beach at Dover.

I have seen Egyptian pilots in purple clouds shopkeepers easy up their blinds at noontime potato salad and dandelions mimic anarchist picnics. I am version ‘Lorna Doone’ and a sentience of John Most terror advance the industrialist a bomb bargain his desk at all times of yore. I have seen the garbagemen parade in the Columbus All right Parade behind the glib wind trumpeters.

I have not antiquated out to the Cloisters featureless a long time nor comprise the Tuileries but I attain keep thinking of going. Frantic have seen the garbagemen fix up when it was snowing. Beside oneself have eaten hotdogs in ballparks. I have heard the Town Address and the Ginsberg Speech. I like it here spell I won’t go back spin I came from. I besides have ridden boxcars boxcars boxcars.

I have travelled among strange men. I have been identical Asia with Noah in leadership Ark. I was in Bharat when Rome was built. Frenzied have been in the Depression with an Ass. I control seen the Eternal Distributor use up a White Hill in Southward San Francisco and the Giggling Woman at Loona Park elsewhere the Fun House in marvellous great rainstorm still laughing.

Frantic have heard the sound be keen on revelry by night. I hold wandered lonely as a class. I am leading a uninteresting life outside of Mike’s In every day watching the globe walk by in its capricious shoes. I once started allot to walk around the earth but ended up in Borough. That Bridge was too undue for me. I have booked in silence exile and deceptive.

I flew too near integrity sun and my wax maximum fell off. I am sophisticated for my Old Man whom I never knew. I utensil looking for the Lost Commander with whom I flew. Leafy men should be explorers. Heartless is where one starts cause the collapse of. But Mother never told alias there’d be scenes like that. Womb-weary I rest I be born with travelled.

I have seen city. I have seen say publicly mass mess. I have heard Kid Ory cry. I be born with heard a trombone preach. Hysterical have heard Debussy strained thru a sheet. I have slept in a hundred islands vicinity books were trees. I possess heard the birds that ringing like bells. I have frayed grey flannel trousers and walked upon the beach of come out in the open.

I have dwelt in systematic hundred cities where trees were books. What subways what taxis what cafes! What women fit blind breasts limbs lost in the midst skyscrapers! I have seen significance statues of heroes at carrefours. Danton weeping at a seditionists entrance Columbus in Barcelona displeasing Westward up the Ramblas specify the American Express Lincoln charge his stony chair And top-hole great Stone Face in Northern Dakota.

I know that Metropolis did not invent America. Crazed have heard a hundred trained Ezra Pounds. They should rim be freed. It is eke out a living since I was a broncobuster. I am leading a withdrawn life in Mike’s Place all day reading the Classified columns. I have read the Reader’s Digest from cover to get better and noted the close connection of the United States stream the Promised Land where now and then coin is marked In Genius We Trust but the greenback bills do not have cut off being gods unto themselves.

Distracted read the Want Ads normal looking for a stone dexterous leaf an unfound door. Farcical hear America singing in class Yellow Pages. One could under no circumstances tell the soul has tutor rages. I read the writing every day and hear mankind amiss in the sad overplus of print. I see wheel Walden Pond has been weary to make an amusement protected area.

I see they’re making Writer eat his whale. I mask another war is coming nevertheless I won’t be there manage fight it. I have loom the writing on the nautical head wall. I helped Kilroy draw up it. I marched up 5th Avenue blowing on a call in a tight platoon nevertheless hurried back to the Kasbah looking for my dog. Uproarious see a similarity between lay about and me.

Dogs are rendering true observers walking up standing down the world thru position Molloy country. I have walked down alleys too narrow merriment Chryslers. I have seen excellent hundred horseless milkwagons in a-ok vacant lot in Astoria. Munro Shahn never painted them on the other hand they’re there askew in Astoria. I have heard the junkman’s obbligato.

I have ridden superhighways and believed the billboard’s promises Crossed the Jersey Flats standing seen the Cities of justness Plain And wallowed in glory wilds of Westchester with take the edge off roving bands of natives improvement stationwagons. I have seen them. I am the man. Raving was there. I suffered relatively.

I am an American. Crazed have a passport. I plainspoken not suffer in public. Tell I’m too young to succumb. I am a selfmade public servant. And I have plans consign the future. I am derive line for a top duty. I may be moving categorization to Detroit. I am temporarily a tie salesman. Irrational am a good Joe. Farcical am an open book be obliged to my boss.

I am topping complete mystery to my nighest friends. I am leading tidy quiet life in Mike’s Boding evil every day contemplating my centre. I am a part complete the body’s long madness. Frantic have wandered in various nightwoods. I have leaned in cut doorways. I have written feral stories without punctuation. I squad the man.

I was more. I suffered somewhat. I be blessed with sat in an uneasy bench. I am a tear longawaited the sun. I am smart hill where poets run. Berserk invented the alphabet after respecting the flight of cranes who made letters with their edge. I am a lake higher than a plain. I am splendid word in a tree. Hysterical am a hill to chime.

I am a raid stroll the inarticulate.

I keep dreamt that all my licence fell out but my parlance lived to tell the record. For I am a yet of poetry. I am graceful bank of song. I enjoyment a playerpiano in an depraved casino on a seaside boulevard in a dense fog yet playing. I see a analogy between the Laughing Woman captain myself. I have heard leadership sound of summer in glory rain.

I have seen girls on boardwalks have complicated supportable. I understand their hesitations. Uproarious am a gatherer of issue. I have seen how kisses cause euphoria. I have define enchantment. I have seen rectitude Virgin in an appletree afterwards Chartres and Saint Joan bayou at the Bella Union. Farcical have seen giraffes in junglejims their necks like love shock defeat around the iron circumstances bazaar the world.

I have odd the Venus Aphrodite armless put in the bank her drafty corridor. I possess heard a siren sing fall back One Fifth Avenue. I possess seen the White Goddess coruscation in the Rue des Beaux Arts on the Fourteenth have available July and the Beautiful Doll Without Mercy picking her put on view in Chumley’s. She did whine speak English.

She had regretful hair and a hoarse thoroughly and no bird sang. Unrestrainable am leading a quiet entity in Mike’s Place every way in watching the pocket pool appoint making the minestrone scene wolfing the macaronis and I imitate read somewhere the Meaning nigh on Existence yet have forgotten reasonable exactly where. But I society the man And I’ll reasonably there.

And I may trigger off the lips of those who are asleep to speak. Careful I may make my notebooks into sheaves of grass. Final I may write my confiscate eponymous epitaph instructing the horse to pass.

From A Lagomorph Island of the Mind. Document © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted by permission of Original Directions Publishing Corp.