Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of San Francisco City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Ferlinghetti was best known for his second collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind, which has been translated into nine languages and sold over a million copies.
Muni Art 2022 proudly honors this world renown poet who contributed so much to the cultural fabric of our city by featuring five of his poems as the inspiration for displayed art in 100 Muni buses throughout San Francisco.
THE CHANGING LIGHT
The changing light at San Francisco
is none of your East Coast light
none of your
pearly light of Paris
The light of San Francisco
is a sea light
an island light
And the light of fog
blanketing the hills
drifting in at night
through the Golden Gate
to lie on the city at dawn
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Recipe for Happiness in Khabarovsk or Anyplace
One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand café in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups
One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you
One fine day
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Populist Manifesto
Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed up too long
In your closed worlds.
Come down, come down
from your Russian Hills and Telegraph Hills,
your Beacon Hills and your Chapel Hills,
your Mount Analogues and Montparnasses,
down from your foothills and mountains,
out of your tepees and domes.
The trees are still falling
and we’ll to the woods no more.
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
At the Golden Gate
At the Golden Gate
A single plover far at sea
wings across the horizon
A single rower almost out of sight
rows his skull into eternity
And I take a Buddha crystal in my hand
And begin becoming pure light
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
from What is Poetry?
It is what exists between the lines.
A true poem can create a divine still-
ness in the world.
It is made with the stillness of
dreams.
It is far, far cries upon the beach at
nightfall.
It is a lighthouse moving its mega-
phone over the sea.
By Lawrence Ferlighetti