Strolling Oakland, One April Afternoon

The low-income people of Oakland

Struggle to hold up their burden

And to keep a roof overhead

(note helicopter tail over roof)

Leo cat that he is,

 the Flaneur expects the unlikely every moment of every day

 1.

Fairyland Make-Believe

 Pretend that flowers look like this

 Does make-believe ever begin or end?

 Which ones will you eat?

 Gusts show up on the Lake

Like transient galaxies

Bottle-brush for the rush

 .

I found myself at a dubious location

A tropical village inside the Fairyland,

Where the children prefer

Pop-art representation to actual trees

 Mysterious drive-way

In a land not far from here

They don't want anybody

To pirate a contact high from the kiddies

We can get out this way,

Just say you never saw the sign

Tell the Old Woman who lives in a shoe
Not to get her granny panties in a burl

 2.

Uptown For Real

 There was a peaceful demonstration planned today,

This leads to an erratic frenzy across downtown,

A wayward bus dropped me off on Telegraph

 So I took the walking tour of thriving Uptown,

 Taking journalistic note of the local plants

And  animal life

 Wondering,

Wondering about the Oakland blues

 Printed esoterica and arcane ephemera

Just don't do it for me anymore

O-O-seven
At Ocean eleven
And the rude boys have a wail
Cause them out a jail
Rude boys cannot fail,

 

Reach over in the corner

Hand me down my walking shoes

 You know by that I got them

Mean old Fat Cat blues

 Trip out on kineticism and the amorphous

 Way down Uptown BART alley

 2 

Latham Square Nitty-Gritty

 Poor people were protesting police brutality,

So they throw out the local so-called cops

And the Highway patrol...

 And the helicopters...

And look the Department of Homeland Security,

Federal Anti-terrorism cops,

All to intimidate people into relinquishing their demands

For justice and equality in a democracy

Think I'll head back over

To the sunny side of the street

14 April 2015