San Francisco Journal

I brought a notebook on my week long trip to San Francisco, but this visit was full on family tourism (hurry up, or we’ll miss the boat to Alcatraz) so I hardly wrote a word. I will spend some time working from memory later this weekend, but for now here is what I did write down. I’ve always admired the aristocratic Japanese ethic that a gentleman should be able to manage a few decent lines of poetry on demand on a regular basis and that is what I found myself doing as I sent along.

San Francisco Journal

1.
Foggy morning
Homeless bleary and
Too cold to beg:
I pass out smokes,
Saint Marlboro
Of Jones St.

2.
At the Tea Garden
An old couple
Shinto souled &
Boulder solemn
Quiet amidst the
Camera-happy
hollering tourists.

3.
Sleep vs. cigarettes:
Fire is winning
But I really need
To dissolve into
Smoke and drift
Off to sleep.

4.

The coast road south
erupts from the surf

A sinuous black ribbon

Threads strawberry fields
& low clouded mountains..

Cali ocean mother
of young continents

devours time & leaves me

Here Now. On the road
Hurtling toward Big Sur.

5.
Home, I water the
Bougainvillea, remember
Fog on the cool heights.

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