[Tony Barnstone]

Hi Folks,

It's been a while since I wrote poems, but this one came out today, a form I rarely write in (terza rima), so I thought I would come back into the conversation. Enjoy, I hope!

An Alley in San Francisco

Along the side street come
strange unicorns.
--Federico Garcia Lorca

A white hoof tufted with silver hair had rung
the metal garbage bin like a dull bell,
startling the black rat from his nest of dung

to scrabble through crusted condoms, maggoty gel
of week-old chicken stir-fry, tossed out, mangled,
like the ingredients of a witch’s spell.

In a streetlight’s elbow the full moon tangled
in a torn web, where a glistening drop of dew
captured the satellites’ red glare and spangled

stars, like a mind or eye and I kissed you
while sirens wailed from somewhere past the sky,
or tried to kiss but hit a cheek when you

heard a sound, turned your head. You and I
laughed into this alleyway, arms hooked,
somewhat too drunk to see what’s in the eye,

the witchery that filled the air with crooked
shadows. What looked out of the fog at us?
Wavered in moonlight? What golden gaze? We looked

but seers see their sight, spiders fuss
with webs that they themselves create. Don’t say
“I see”; say “I am sight.” Who knows what was

missed with that clumsy kiss, what went astray
and was left dying in the alleyway?

--------------
The original:

An Alley in San Francisco

Along the side street come
strange unicorns.
--Federico Garcia Lorca

A white hoof tufted with hair rung
the metal garbage bin like a dull bell,
startling the black rat from his nest of dung,

scrabbling through crusted condoms, maggoty gel
of week-old chicken stir-fry, tossed out, mangled,
like the ingredients of a witch’s spell.

In a streetlight’s elbow the full moon tangled
in a torn web, where a glistening drop of dew
captured the satellites’ red glare and spangled

stars like a brain or eye, like I and you,
who think our sticky brains can catch the sky,
launching our filaments to touch the blue

of wavelength scattering, like you and I,
who walked into this alleyway, arms hooked,
somewhat too drunk to see what’s in the eye.

The city felt unreal, distorted, crooked.
what looked out of the yellow fog at us?
wavered in moonlight? What golden gaze? We looked

but seers see their sight, spiders fuss
with webs that they themselves create. don’t say
“I see,” say “I am sight.” what was

the unicorn we couldn’t see to say
but love left dying in the alleyway?

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Tony—

I enjoyed your poem. The terza rima suggests that we are joining Vergil on a trip through hell.
I picked up some other allusions to (mostly) American poets. I wondered if they were meant to represent the damned souls and the tercets represent the descending circles of hell. Do their sins get worse as the poem progresses?

S2L3: “like the ingredients of a witch’s [broth]” Robert Frost, “Design”
S3L3: “like red glare and spangled” Francis Scott Key, “The Star-Spangled Banner”
S4L3: “launching our filaments” Walt Whitman, “A Noiseless, Patient Spider”
S6L1: “city . . . unreal” T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”
S6L2: “yellow fog” T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Three little nits:
1. I could be prevailed upon to overlook “like you and I” in S5L1. We know that “like” is a preposition so it should be “like you and me,” but that spoils your rhyme, and we all say “Who’s there? It’s me.”
However, “like I and you” in S4L1 just goes too far. How about “first me, then you” as an alternative? Or did you mean it as an allusion to E. E. Cummings?

2. In S1L1, “rung” is a past participle and properly needs a form of “to have” with it. The simple past, without has/have/had is “rang.” I realize that this would screw up your rhymes, so my advice is to add has/have.

3. Since this is posted in Met, I have to point out that it is impossible to get a line of IP with only 8 syllables, yet in S1L1 and S7L3, you made valiant attempts.
For S1L1, how about something like: “an ivory hoof with tufted hair has rung”
For S7L3, how about “ ‘I see.’ Instead say, ‘I am sight.’ What was”

Side note: I was born and raised in San Francisco. It is sad to see it in such a sorry state. I used to think it was the most beautiful city in the world.

Best wishes in 2025. Glad you’re back!

Glenn

[Tony Barnstone]

Hey Glenn,

Thanks for the thoughtful response! Yes, I had all of those other poems ringing like bells in the back of my mind--along with Baudelaire's "The Seven Old Men," which inspired Eliot's yellow fog and unreal city passages in Prufrock and The Waste Land. A bit of The Last Unicorn, Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein arguing about the invisible rhino in the room, and four or five other philosophers who argued about the nature of unreal objects (Frege, Meinong, Carnap, Ayer, and Harman). But hopefully, that all is unnecessary to know to appreciate the poem.

Hmn, wouldn't the grammar be right with "like you and I, / who walked"? One wouldn't say "me, who walked"? And also, "like I ... who think[s]" not "me, who thinks"? On the other hand, it WOULD be "a drop of dew...like me" -- so that's a bit confusing. Seems like the pronoun is both the subject and the object in that long complicated sentence. I should probably just simplify it and break it up a bit. I will try. I do like the "I" "eye" puns and the reverse parallelism. Let's see what I can come up with!

Yes to changing "rung" and filling in the missing beats (first draft, bad counting, posted too quickly!)

I lived across the bridge for years, always enjoyed SF, which always had drugs and crime and filth, but haven't been back since its recent decline--just read the news reports. For what it's worth, the inspiration for this was a dream I had of a strange (divine) encounter in a SF alley while I was living in Oakland in the 1980s.

In any case, thanks again for the thoughtful notes.

Best, Tony

[Roger Slater]

No, "like you and I, who" is grammatically incorrect. The "I" is only an object, not a subject. The subject is "who," not "I".

You may choose to leave it as it is, since there is an tendency these days for people to say "I" instead of "me" in many different contexts. But between you and I me, I think it's unfortunate.

[Julie Steiner]

Moot now, since you have gracefully sidestepped the issue in the current revision, Tony, but here's my take:

The short version: What Rogerbob said.

The long version:

The pronoun "who" is the subject of the verb of its own clause, so it's doing its own thing grammatically and should be nominative, regardless of the case of the personal pronouns it modifies. And those personal pronouns are also doing their own thing grammatically, regardless of whether the clause that modifies them begins with "who" or "whom."

One wouldn't say "me, who walked"?

Actually, one might.

At the beginning of a sentence of which the first person is the subject of the verb, you are correct that one would say something like "I, who walked everywhere, arrived late to the party."

But at the end of a prepositional phrase in which the first person is the object, one would say something like "Others would arrive late, like me, who walked everywhere; but they generally had flimsier excuses."

"Like" is often a preposition, in which case its objects would be "you and me." "Like" can also be a conjunction with an omitted but implied verb, as in "like you and I [are]" or "like you and I [do]." (I'm old enough to have been told to use "as" or "such as" instead of "like" when a verb, or the ghost of one, was involved, though nowadays "like" can be used in those situations, too. But that's not what was going on in this situation, anyway.

[Jim Moonan]

.
I like the poem very much. Your sentiment and phrasing is captivatingly poetic. The graceful enjambments between stanzas is virtuosic.

.

[Tony Barnstone]

Thanks all for the grammar and good words!