Solstice Sail to San Francisco Past

Scrimshaw depicting

a saucy young lady 

of the Barbary Coast

A Child of Summer

The Flaneur welcomes its arrival

 with a small, floating
ceremony

 Historic bench 

from the Oakland ferry,
Open your golden gate

 Swanning around 

 a soigne scene,

Smoked-out indeed

Rescue at sea,

Flashing on nautical safety

 Virtual San Francisco

made of Os and 1s

We're bound to sail 

around Telegraph hill

to primordial Fisherman's Wharf

Nice to skirt 

the big-city cubism

Come on down

to the Big Dig

 Totem and taboo

Iconic diving suit man

 Gordian knot 

Woven rope

associated with the dream state

 Outside the flags were whipping

I sheltered under the boardwalk

 Out of the wind

 Still in the swim,

Hyde Street Pier

 Bob, bob bobbing along

 Aesthetic and industrious,

my inclinations

 A man in a life-preserver

as seen from the deep

 A lover of life,

unadulterated freedom

 This kid was my hero

of the day
So many come and barely touch water
He jumped in the waves with a wahoo,
His parental units never trod the sand
sat nearby on the pavement
subsumed in their individual devices

His joy was contagious

 It was he and me

and the sea

gull

 His t-shirt read

DON'T STOP

and he never did
I regreted his dull parents for him
How they ignored his vivid vitality,
Then I watched chubby Mom
shower and feed him,
Dad show him a rope demo
and realized he might be lonely
 but still quite lucky

 Swirling bottle of gold dust

 Led to the forty-niners

 The plutocrats followed

 Necessitated a police state

Happy trails

Ghost dancer

As the afternoon elongated

 I was atmosphericly high

Circling with shorebirds

I knew the way to

San Jose

in air quotes

En voyage,

jamais

I am up here now

merely need to close my eyes

Handcuffs were common

during surgery

and dental work

Industrial artifacts

imagining Philip Guston

paintings

I'm up here now

Plum tuckered

On a thin woolen blanket

I feel off to sleep

I dreamed an secret elevator lowered me into a substratum of time gone by

I was moving over my shoulders toward a train tunnel a vast gaping worm hole

I understood that my movement in the darkness was motion into the past

That I still had a boat to catch back at sea level soon

When I awoke at 6:35 PM

A vast ceiling of clouds had rolled in 

making thing even breezier and chilly 

I shivered awhile at the far end of the beach

The clouds stretched over the whole sky in strips

all variegated and interestingly shaped

The sun began to reappear toward the horizon
to set behind Mount Tamalpais,

It all lit up as I walked to Pier 41

and sat a while in Musee Mechanique

 to warm up 

The bay was traversed by the most profuse

and largest squadrons of pelicans I'd ever seen

Parading in elegant formation after fish

No battery left for me camera tonight

for my spectacular crossing home

All that remained was my return trip

I rallied but I was ready to go home for supper

and coffee and out of brandy to boot

More herb would only might me more fugue-like and tired

So the crowning irony of all

I had used all the juice in my phone camera

When, for a solid hour, the sky

just bloomed in endless mind-manifesting color 

and expression formed by the objective chance formation of clouds

Still somewhat chilled

I had to sit inside on a comfy seat

But the entire crossing the sunset all over the sky 

just got better and better

It really was all too much for my sensorium

Then followed the most transcendent occurance

when a squadron of pelican followed us

out the North bay flying at the level of the Bay Bridge

and hovering briefly underneath 

Regrouping before they began a long slow descent

parallel to our boat's path

Almost hallucinatory in its intensity, I followed them 

as they swerved toward the other side of Alameda

Then could only marvel as the sky not only stayed lit 

the colors became more intense

Great disordered clouds to the North in the forms

of Max Ernst crossed with tome the of Maxfield Parish

Then the fairy book ultimate

as we deboarded a shipmate

pointed down the estuary

There just clearing the Oakland Hills

The broad gold coin of the full moon

I walked up Washington 

ecstatic and exhausted

Let this antique San Francisco made lantern

stand-in for an truly outstanding sunset,

And all the elements of contentment

20 June 2016