I ADMIRE THE ART OF THESE UNKNOWN TALENTED INDIVIDUALS WHO LEAVE THEIR MARK...ALL OVER THIS EARTH. BUT JUST LIKE YOU INDICATED, DEPENDING ON WHERE WE ARE, IT'S NEVER REALLY THE ART ALONE BUT THE ENTIRE ATMOSPHERE THAT INFLUENCES US. I HADN'T THOUGHT ABOUT IT BEFORE, BUT WHEN GRAFFITI(AND ITS LOCATION) MAKES ONE 'PINE' TO BE SOMEWHERE ELSE...THAT'S A STRONG PIECE OF ART, INDEED! THANKS FOR SHARING, REGIS! LOVE, BLESSINGS AND FAITH...HIS+INSPIRATIONS

Graffiti on walls are filled with the artist's imaginations. We have some graffiti in downtown Toronto along Spadina Avenue. They are so beautiful!!!

Nice poem, Regis!

Sandie

Graffiti is one of those rare things that repulse me even as I see its intrinsic value as a kind of art form. There are those who would say it is an art form and who am I to disagree? I personally can see absolutely nothing worth valuing in a Picasso. All of his works make me think he must have been taking bad hits of acid or something. Graffiti is different, though. It has an almost tangible voice that I sometimes think I can actually hear if I listen hard enough. Picasso's work is flat, unemotional, boring, and silent. It leaves me completely unmoved. Some of the graffiti that I've seen over the years, however, grabs me by the eyes and dares me to look away. No, I don't like graffiti, but it does have the ablity to effect an imaginary shrug of indifference and ask, "So?"

Rebecca

Graffiti, Regis, is undoubtedly an influential folk people art, a message wall for all who wish to look.

Los Angeles and San Francisco, the loud and quiet brothers, perhaps.
I think I'd prefer foggy San Francisco as having more of a British-type weather - the peace and love city of the flower power generation, too,
and even a long-standing Chinese community for an occasional dim sum Morning Tea.

SF's Graffiti is probably just as surreal and colourful as LA's, I suppose.

Thoughtful poem, Regis, a headliner! lol

kenny

You have great depth to your poetry and I can see you observe much as you walk along life's pathways, Make for great poetry Regis, :)

True. It's a mirror of modernity, overwhelming, too loud and impulsive to be meaningful, screaming unreflected raw emotion in your face and forgotten tomorrow, for even the screamer is never quite sure what he feels, the focus being the scream, the graffiti, the noise in and by itself, not the reality behind it (and he believes in no such thing as reality, anyway). Cities like Los Angeles are the flesh-and-blood expression of this state, the evocative metaphor of San Francisco (if not the actual city in its contemporary form) forming a stark contrast to all that. Intelligent and meaningful poetry. It would seem to me that our century (the 20th, that is) reached the peak of its intellectual and creative potential in the 70's, while the succeeding decades have seen a constant and steep decline in this respect.

Yes, graffiti can be a very overwhelming thing. Especially if you can't read the messages that are often not blasts to society but declarations of gang territory, making some parts of Los Angeles just very dangerous to venture into if you are not a gang member, well protected.

I would agree with you on San Francisco even though I haven't been there in a very long time. the homeless problem in both cities is worse to see on the streets than graffiti.

Ron