Sunbathing

Woman on Potrero Hill
Gazing at Twin Peaks
Would love to take her bra off
Soak up that Mission sun
Lie on her back
Free from attack.

My generation!!

Rejecting the courage and imagination of Jesus as Western horseshit,
We latched onto Eastern sensations, willing to corrupt a nation,
All of us proud of it.

On the waterfront

Watching light shine off buildings on Treasure Island,
You know you missed a moment in the sun,
How you coulduh been somebody.

Backing from the rail, you sit to feel your pain,
Then notice the light’s stillness, how peaceful you feel,
How you’ve forgotten the wind.

You know the sun usually comes out,
That if you come all the time you will face your glaring pain until it weakens,
That your peace will become greater than your failure.

Standing, you feel the wind assault you.
You walk back, seeking light in everyone’s face,
All of you shivering.

Fell street exit

Returning from a cross country trip in 1975,
I whooped in astonishment as I drove up the
Fell Street hill after 2000 miles of flat.

Revving up from the bowels of the city
Leery and exhilirated
You see fog attack the sun
Block after block
Until fog wins
And you feel creepy
Running on empty
Wind out of your sails
It never fails.
Rather than sunshine at the end of a fabled nation
There’s cold wind and trees
Dripping all this condensation.

Mariposa street

Painting everywhere.
Taggers overflow.
With butterflys’ brillance.

The con men

When poets proudly said fuck you in this city, they betrayed its’ sacredness
and beauty as a place of hope, as the place to come to purify yourself,
scale the heights, face your darkness in this divine and intense light.

Against the elders’ claim any fool can be a drunk, a sex hound, poets
screeched drunks and sex hounds have a right and duty to be profane, to
lead San Francisco’s youth away from demanding vision, to create heights
as selfish and false as skyscrapers to come.

Grace

Swaggering against the wind
You vow to live this city’s beauty.
When you feel ugly
You step into these wonderful churches,
Out of the gales,
Marvelling at peaceful light,
Your promise still in sight
Only much more humbly.

San Francisco: the sixties

Not wise enough to sense you shouldn’t need drugs here,
Hippies shot their wads at false gods.

Old time boozers knelt, prayed.
Jesus. Make me less afraid.

Sausalito

Jesus and the boys ventured to Sausalito.
Bundled in the cold,
Jesus surveyed hills around the bay,
Wind in his face.

Anchoring in Richardson’s water, https://historicalmarkerproject.com/markers/HM1XM0_william-richardson-historical_Sausalito-CA.html
He walked on shore observing a lunatic.
Jesus said “I can handle this.”
Having met his match,
Jesus tried again:
Hocus pocus help me focus
Remove his demons so he stops screamin.
Reaching from the bottom of his being,
Jesus channeled the lunatics depths,
Holding his breathe,
Gasping ”Come out you things!”
Teetering, Jesus couldn’t contain them all.
Not wanting to fall,
He thought of hogs he saw grazin,
Then spun, casting them the lunatic’s devils.
Now they’re crazin
Running to the water to drown,
As everyone in town wailed
“Who is this clown?”

Going back to the boat,
The guys headed into Richardson’s Bay,
Another gray day. Another person saved.
Townspeople felt like Captain Richardson,
Animals slaughtered,
Watching idiots sail away.

Mornin’ afta

Hung over again

We shiver in the wind.

Surveying the splendor of this city,

Knowing we betrayed its beauty,

Corrupted its freedom.

Slaves to our lust,

We still cannot rise to the occasion:

It isn’t about us