San Francisco Scenes

San Francisco Scenes


In Golden Gate Park
A man walks a tightrope
Strung tree to tree
Across a gusty field

Maybe he’s flying
In his other mind, his other body
This ambitious angel of wobble
Wannabe Icarus
This prideful hipster Sisyphus
Like all of us forever
At odds with intransigent gravity

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In a sliver of sun vanishing
In Chinatown’s winter shadows
An old man saws the èrhú
Stringing ancient notes
Into a melody for here
And right now
A feverish dragon song
That singes my ears
Puts a torch to my shivering bones
In this vanishing sliver of sun
In Chinatown’s winter shadows

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On Haight Street the hordes
Of the hairy unwashed
Rehash their dreams and
Scrounged-up memories
Between smoke and toke
Rap and whistle
They argue and sing
But never the same
Song or argument twice

They sleep like the dead
With guitars and stained blankets
In the doorways of closed shops
They push ratty boxes on skateboards
Clothes stuffed into garbage bags
On rusted shopping carts
Stopping to scoop up half-smoked butts
Pocketing them for later
When the moon is high
The streets cold and crying

They huddle in blue cloud conspiracies
Feeding their imaginary dogs and
Very real white rabbits
Asking each other to recollect
Incidents that never occurred

They look you right in the eyes
Then they look right through you
As if you were the one forgotten

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On Strawberry Hill
Gold light from the Pacific
Oleander wind