Alley Rats
Alley Rats - meaning Summary
Street Nicknames and Fate
The poem sketches a small urban subculture of boys who coin playful, rough slang—terms for whiskers and beards—and trade street cries while sparrows pick at oats in the gutter. Their jargon and antics make them notorious; police label them the Dirty Dozen and newspapers report their names. The closing line暗ly records two of them dying together at a "necktie party," compressing youthful bravado and sudden, public tragedy.
Read Complete AnalysesThey were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of “lilacs.” And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise of “mutton chops,” “galways,” “feather dusters.” Metaphors such as these sprang from their lips while other street cries sprang from sparrows finding scattered oats among interstices of the curb. Ah-hah these metaphors—and Ah-hah these boys— among the police they were known as the Dirty Dozen and their names took the front pages of newspapers And two of them croaked on the same day at a “necktie party” … if we employ the metaphors of their lips.
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