outlaw poetry and free jazz network

More Than The Alley

I fought in alleys as a kid,
in the small town alleys
of Vincennes and the city, steel-
sot alleys of
Pittsburgh, for no other reason
than I had to fight. It was something
unavoidable, destined.
By in large I won the
majority of them,
which means nothing. I could have
just as well lost most, and it would not
have mattered
It wasn’t the winning
or the losing, that had nothing
to do with it,
just as words often have nothing
to do with poetry.
It was more than
the battle, the alley,
or the crowds
taking perverse delight
in the blood flying from adolescent faces,
cracked bones and the possibility
of serious injury.
Something, some pure rage inside prodded
me on, and I was always
astonished after
to find myself reasonably intact,
having come through one of the most
dangerous
kinds of human interchange.
There was never a fight
in which I didn’t
shake from a sickening deep gut fear,
my hands trembling like
a dumb unconsecrated nun.
The swallowing of my fear was like
choking down razor blades, but
I would take a deep breath, swallow
and swing hard.

“More than the Alley” will be appearing in my large collected volume coming out from de/a/d/b/e/a/t press & Epic Rites Press at any day from now.

some related articles are listed below:

1. doug draime | 4th & main
2. doug draime | the shamrock bar circa 1976
3. doug draime | coltrane mowing the grass
4. doug draime | five poems
5. doug draime | miles
6. doug draime | digging out of the catacombs of the poets
7. doug draime | ginger baker
8. doug draime | 6 sketches of L.A. (1967-1970)
9. doug draime | sometimes
10. doug draime | the late 1980’s on these mean streets of the united states of amerika
11. doug draime | gracie slick at 23 and me on lsd
12. doug draime | robert johnson and the one available woman of horny blue
13. doug draime | reel
14. doug draime | lily and bob
15. doug draime | walking on the sky over east L.A.
16. doug draime | over the mountains and through the woods there is an ocean
17. doug draime | a flashback of the streets of paris 1871, or a flashback of the streets of east hollywood 1971
18. doug holder | no one dies…
19. todd moore | writing poetry, burning the house