“The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great that I thought I was in a dream.”

JK Quote, Kerouac Alley, San Francisco

Photograph by David Rheins

Steinbeck Quote, Kerouac Alley

Originally uploaded by DRheins

Hey, how do you come up with your material” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Your poems where do they come from?”

“Dunno” He said.

With his pea coat collar pulled up and leftover beer clinging to his mustache, he squinted and pointed to the street.

“See that man over there? With his hat on he’s five inches taller than the taxicab.”

“What, that guy doesn’t have a hat on.”

“Hmm.” He began carefully kicking a small pile of cigarette butts.

“Look how ugly these are.” He said.

I lit a cigarette and it started to rain in California. We watched the rain gently trickle down the alley wall and drip in haiku patterns without titles ending in small pools.

“Hey man, have you ever been trout fishing?”

Freshly scrubbed

debummed and painted

Ferlinghetti's people

prepare Kerouac Alley

to salute its most luminous

city light