Mobile Mardi Gras on San Francisco Bay Part 1

 Mermaid provides free show





Pas Perdus

 Lost and Found

The Flaneur crosses over for seawater taffy

At home he feels like a tourist,

Here's the full tour

All captured on a "smart" phone,

Indulge me the poor photo quality

In favor of the flavor of

Spontaneity and Carnival

 Beyond Bed indeed

I'm off early-- down to the Port

To catch the eleven o'clock Ferry to SF

Moving past the flowers

I continue down to the Port

Oakland,

We're going to have to see you later

Launched

As usual the world 

Looks cinematic

 

Ship parked out in the middle

That ramp on the stern is

A launch for an escape vessel

 Everything was military and industrial,

As Jack Bruce sang in Escalator over the Hill

Leo Villareal's vertical light sculpture

 Resumed this month
I won't be after dark to see it

The vagueries of the Bay

On a warm Winter day

We pull-in in quietude 

The frenzy of the weekend past is gone

Fisherman's Wharf

 The tawdry thick of things

 Sourdough bread on sale at Boudin

Alcatraz-related souvenirs

for Passover

Mementos of life under the sea

 Locals come down to the Wharf

To escape shells of their own making

The San Francisco Blues

Poems by Jack Kerouac

 Wild is the wave,

Oh I dig your blue windshield

 Thumbs up from Mickey Mouse

Cryogenically copyright

Smokestack lightning

Impressive power boat

 San Francisco blues

are the kind of blues

That provide their own cure

Where fish people gather 

 

Wouldn't be RAY man

Without his Ray-Bans,

Polarized lens preferred

The Sea contains

More than can be written of

In your books of philosophy

Maybe STETSON will see this

free blog advert

And send me a fine chapeau

This mural replaces an older one here,

The same view with lots of industry

It was faded and peeled

But it was genuinely local

 Pirate trinkets

Notice the t-shirt

Trompe l'oeil pirate's garb

Even though it has a white collar

It still has a bear-rug of chest-hair,

Now that's manly

 Fish mongers still exhibiting 

Superbowl-mania,

But all the tourist have gone,

 Wow, 

Will you look at that paint-job?

On J-1 sativa it's like color porn

 A stop in the Visitor center as always,

Bathroom and cold water refills 

before hitting the shore

Candy counter

 

A siren blasted twelve noon,

It's the highest of tides

 Waters churning below the very boards

Where I have my marine lunch

Truffled potatoes with my standard sardines

 Steamboats and paddle wheels

I know what it means to miss New Orleans

But not that much

8 February 2016