from Pictures of the Gone World, 1955
Lawrence Ferlinghetti



                               funny fantasies are never so real as oldstyle romances
                                      where the hero has a heroine who has
                                         long black braids and lets
                                                                  nobody
                            kiss her ever
                                    and everybody's trying all the time to
        run away with her
                        and the hero is always drawing his
   (sic) sword and
               tilting at ginmills and
                                      forever telling her he
        loves her and has only honorable intentions and
  honorable mentions
                     and no one ever beats him at
                                                        anything
        but then finally one day
                              she who has always been so timid
offs with her glove and says
                            (though not in so many big words)
                 Let's lie down somewheres

                                                baby



from A Coney Island of the Mind, 1958
Lawrence Ferlinghetti



See
   it was like this when
                        we waltz into this place
a couple of Papish cats
                       is doing an Aztec two-step
And I says
          Dad let's cut
but then this dame
                comes up behind me see
                            and says
                    You and me could really exist
Wow I says
           Only the next day
                she has bad teeth
                         and really hates
                                           poetry