Neo-Con Berkeley

Remember the oaks?

The Flaneur circumnavigates

UC Berkeley attempting

to dispel the hex

 Elmwood driveway

vicinity of the University

 Going to college

is an socio-evolutionary 

extension of Neoteny,

Extended infancy leads

to more primate brain power

 A nice square notions shop

has a wake-and-bake coffee mug

Finally, normality

 Later, kidniks

 here comes my bus

 

 UC Campus

Let There Be Light 

Intermittent sunlight

and a cool sea breeze

 Gateway to

 the Student-debt Mill

The new museum

 oozes fine art

onto the apron of campus

 The Greek Theatre 1903

Uncomfortable 

but a scene not to be missed

Where I've seen and heard 

Dylan, Augustus Pablo,

Belle and Sebastian, White Stripes

Massive Attack, Arcade Fire and others

 Backstage at the Greek,

Bob Dylan and Mavis Staples

are playing there tonight

 A fresh kill

says we 're near

 Return to the scene

of the corporate crime

 Oh, Leonardo...

 Hideous metal fur

 Like a gun turret

admitting little natural light

 Student Athelete

or beast of burden

for military-industrial

amusement?

 Wall of shame

Spaces for plutocrats

remain available

 An Elysian oak grove

reduced to 

a dark and forbidding place

The Haas plateau 

commands a privleged view

 An ornamental lawn

 

 The designer reveals his priorities

by extending  paving stones 

out on the lawn

 The martyr-like International house

 Timeless skies

over the Bay

 Bonnet for a concrete commode

A few notable survivors

of the constant construction

and destruction

 A quasi-religious stone circle

 

 Worship to student atheletes

who give 100%

to the University's

Lucrative football enterprise

 They stumped us again

 More fresh stimps

and disturbed earth

the floor of the former grove

The last remaining oaks

front the fortress-like

Ubermensch training center

Ultimately it was merely
a plot to greatly increase
the massive stadium footprint,
Oak trees and their admirers
merely collateral damage

8 May 2016