Beat (3)

"In Back of the Real " - a poem by Alan Ginsberg

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