almost absent
After a time we shall come back to clarify
how scaring the populace for fun and profit
produced broken fear that almost ran to self-censorship.
We have almost returned to the starting point
where injuries fueled childhood dreams
that deviated to the point of obsolescence.
Most of us are crowded with history,
and under no circumstances can afford
to lose consciousness,
even if our jobs cause spontaneous boredom.
Our mutation took place at once.
Waves were the only sound.
Political reform would be discussed
at the start of the next day.
At the instant that we fell into variability,
immigration officers assaulted our bed-mates
beside the broken windowpane.
This is but one record.
I have become a stranger
literally representing absence -
that is why at this time I am a prisoner as much as a variance.
park 2
i've never been here before, she said
i never would have seen it
if you hadn't shown it to me
i miss you lena, the sign said
ten days later, and it was gone
the wall a group project
the garden began as a storefront market
became a collective hogshead
turned into a co-op corner, veggies and beans
shake that booty, that's one thing
that she would never say to me
the haight falls into the mission, unaware
garden plot bursts with cornrow abundance
dig sow rake turn plot plot plot
in the everlasting cycle of hunger
three-story apartments crumble
over one-way cobblestone streets
like a mother's dream of venice
smoke flows through our streets
a canal of languages and substances
controlled or not, belligerent insouciance
cemetery around the corner
"twenty minute parking"
no time to die
painted layers bulge plywood scaffold
sidewalk manifestos provoke sensual abandon
i forget what those words meant
he doesn't talk, just dig dig digs
bare arms burnt brown as nipples
skin skin skinny chest wrinkles
he had white hair on chest and head
scalp sheaves hung past his shoulders
like a broom that got a new job
i'm sick of cleaning up everyone else's mess
i want postcards of accurate accusations
to absolve me from seasons of madness:
her father had moved their family into a trailer
when the house burned down, and that's where
she met Shakespeare on bedtime escapades
book after book of laws and rules
i want a page to teach me how to leave my body
too late for that forgetness
forget this, i want to be the greatest poet
that has ever lived, ever in the whole wide world
or at least learn how to get through today
park
there's a hill in san francisco
and the air is less of a burden there
calla lillies unfurl under rose bushes
but the light isn't any lighter
or the wind less sharp
stairs climb up its terraces
the levels of hydrangea and bougainvillea
each house has a different name
but you don't know what they are
- they don't advertise
the park drapes across a slope
leading up from north beach
cars whistle and trains honk
busses whirr and neon signs clang
the bay below stretches like steel siding
corrugated warehouses dot shore
a fire engine rumbled downhill from coit tower
alarm sighing like a captain who'd just left
men and women in amarillo waders
thick suspenders bunched over blue t-shirts
jumped from ladder trucks, ran door to door
pastel facades behind wrought-iron bannisters
knock-knock - who's there - your car
it's illegally parked
flowers, bridges, grassland mountains
vistas curl between hotels and bars
look, Ginsburg lived there -
can you see the mural?
that's the nastiest video store in town
two guys had a fight there
one kid wanted into the club
the bouncer threw him down the hill
kid comes back, staggering up
the sidewalk gleams, tongue wet
he spits he cries
he wants into the club
his girlfriend's pulls him away
bouncers laugh at him
even the cops shake their head
flower shop bookstore donuts lawyers
if you break your foot, you know where to go
don't go up that street, so steep it has stairs
but if you look down the alley towards the Sunset
past the jazz club and the parking lot
where the valet guy eats cashews, reads Arabic,
you'll see a kid teaching his brother how to dribble
basketball bigger than his torso
broken bottle, stained glass, baby stroller
she yells at the firefighters, drives away
fisherman's wharf smells like popcorn and seaweed
hell's angel's flew past there, or blue
i forget which - no i don't, time to stop lying
it's all there, or it was, or it will be again.
