Early and Pre-History of San Francisco (The Secret of the Sea Pt.III, Chap.3.)

 

History is a voyage from the real to the imagined

1. Pre-history:

The Origins of Yerba Buena

It is widely accepted that the land mass 

that became San Francisco rose out of the sea 

 a sudden manifestation of tectonic tumescence

Petrified redwood provides us with clues

to what were once coastal forests

Little is known about the earliest animal life

widely presumed to have been very nasty

and to have died off quite a long time ago

It is thought that there were still whales in those days

With the first human inhabitants,

we peer around a rock darkly

In previous eras scholars idealized

noble savages who lived Romantic idyls,

Actually, our understanding of these first people

remains quite primitive

Examples of populations considered extinct

still turn-up on sundry beaches,

Here we observe a prehistoric flower-child

2.

Early History of San Francisco

Historical studies are best compared 

to a Miro-shaped hole in the floor

in which ancient objects of desire persist

The history of Western man is tied to beer,

from its earliest forms in ancient Egypt
to ales top-fermented on backdoor stoops
to the eldritch breweries and taprooms 

to modern-era factory suds and today's microbrews,

Man marches on

In from the sea a sailor could trade

a dazzling tortoise shell
for three bottles of Wunder beer;

Intricate scrimshaw

fetched a bottle of good whiskey

An establishment selling brews on July the Fourth

Hobos of the sea landed here for centuries 

One cannot overstate the importance of beer

 to the opening of the West,
to the founding of this Nation 

Dolls have a great deal to do with it too

Next thing you know you have

many a gay caballero on your hands

Hence the early arrival
of the civilizing influence of religion

3.

The Gold Rush

Tall ship inside of a vitrine,

 a message in a bottle

The message was that the Europeans 

were the new dominant sub-species of primate,

Formal, organized, and technologically adept,

they replaced the local flora and fauna

Those damn Yankee traders showed up,

bringing with them all sorts of confidence men,

the Flaneur here includes himself

 Certain intrepid mercenary types
 roamed the earth as colonial front men
for the arch-capitalists

 

Then, a whirling milky way 

of gold dust 

was discovered upstream

An "instant city" appeared overnight,

coming on like sleepy mushrooms

Today the story is relegated to potted histories,

Steam Punk drive-in movies,
buried gold dental crowns
and dry dusty ghost towns

Gold's glittering legacy
consists of continual financial crime

and a permanent plutocracy

With its burden of struggle and strife,
cramped quarters for most,
a pauper's burial at Land's End

Is that a "C" or is it a "G"?

In the first American Gilded Age,

  the custom was for Robber Barons

to build temples to house their dead souls

A system of justice arose

to protect the property rights of the wealthy,
law and order to maintain the status quo

The infamous Barbary Coast was host
to rough men who did quick work 

with a paintbrush

or with a sailor's knife

Around this time Chinatown was first founded

as a source for cheap labor, florid housewares
and peut-etre a bowl of O.

The opening of the railroads,
A revolution in industry
dead tech too magnetic to discard

Charming and uncanny momentos 

of our race to the bottom

Examination of the historical record:
  souvenirs: coffee cups, matchbooks, 
room keys, and a slender opium pipe

 4. The Military Era

Bringing things up to the present

Ever vigilant in a turbulent world
of rising seas

 

Keeping the peace in our nation-state

Responding to emergency of any kind

Never mind Richard Serra, 

nautical military debris produces

real heavy metal enigmas

As long as there is fuel left to burn

The military you shall always have with you

 4. Epilogue

A solitary room in the dim past

watches the tide roll this way

 Almost check out time,
the tidal clock seems to say

San Francisco,

Alameda, Oakland

Summer 2013-Summer 2014