Berkeley The Big Dig

 Composition

These Flaneurian times,

Your random eye-witness news

Where the BART train 

leaves the tunnel

What does that look like now?

 Now I know,

A BART train looks like

The business end of the new BAM

Please exit through the gift shop

 Back wall of the museum

 

 Classical art memes 

Resurface in popular forms

 All the nightmares came today

"Student Regent" with heart Israel insignia

Yamulke blue and white tie

Stubble and glower

Wearing an NYC orthodox

 overcoat and muffler indoors 

in Springtime California

to increase his special envoy bulk,

By "anti Semitic rhetoric" they mean

Criticism of USA's partner in crime 

Who collects billions from US tax-payers

 This cough remedy obviously enjoys 

Genuine customer approval

Cross and clouds, 

Holy Week

 I dig riding the 12 bus

With the colorful young

 Her hair was such an attractive  color

Like she dyed it with a Paz Easter egg kit,

Snazzy bunny bonnet as well

Traveling at a high speed 

Another mysterious plane

 This guy has outdone his nutty self

 Heavenly city, earthly city

Formerly full of artists

 Now more like artsy, 

cozy and cute

 The neighborhood Metaphysical bookshop

Time-traveling anachronism 

Here, here,

Be here now

 3.

Free Appropriation

 

 Yikes, I guess I can't say 

he jumped my claim

But this is so up my alley

 A frame shop window

Elmwood theater across the street

 It's just that

Eight out of ten of these

 Are all street signs that I have recently 

made images of myself

 If not already in the bag

They are all on my to-do list

 Not the HOTSY-TOTSY too,

The Flaneur looks blue

 The scuba-shop on Telegraph

Haven't photographed it in 25 years

It's much more eroded-away today

 I even remember when Kasper's

Was still going full steam,

Now mere social archeology

"And though we'll never be royals"

"Ve are ze robots"

I bet the photographer just moved here

 My work is more layered than his

I'm up in the clouds baby

Above all 

above it all

 4.

The Paschal Moon

 5.

Downtown at a Glance

 

 This peaceful meditative spot

Remains fenced-off

There was an encampment here 

Last year to"protest"

No sit, no lie on sidewalk laws

So a deceptive sign and snow fence go up

And the scarce public space is taken

and stays taken for long long stretches

 This sort of maneuver

 is becoming commonplace,

 Bobby Seale doesn't look

 very happy about it

 Then there's this "Protest"

Going on for years now

Not a hobo-jungle or anything

Berkeley thinks it's humane

to "tolerate" people

Living wretchedly and desperately

in a busy public space

Antique post box

with fresh mail art

 Back out into the disorientation

Oak in the Park

Across from the high school

 

 The unsanitary bedlam at the park

Has subsided somewhat

Leaving just the hardcore

The cat with an eye-patch

And a shock of ginger hair

Still parades the up-side down flag

Skating on 

with merely a glance

Over one's shoulder

March 2016