Thursday, September 8, 2016

Labor of Love II: Deep Crab Cove






 

 Now there's an LP jacket
Graphically speaking,
they really knew how to handle breasts







In which the Flaneur meets a redhead
and gets a load of the crabs






Labor Day in Alameda


An American working-class town








 Cook-out at the surf shop






 Kite-board



 


 Sunny and breezy with moderate holiday population,
I laid in the sand enjoying the laughing spashing kids
then on a bench to observe passers-by and their dogs,
But I was irresistibly drawn back to the submarine walkway
at the heart of Crab Cove













 Uh-oh here she comes again,
by herself this time





 What is this Sadie Hawkins day?
She crossed both ways with a Dad figure,
I tried to talk her out of climbing up on
the treacherously slippery rocks,
to no avail





 Chatting me up
in language talkative four-year-olds use
as if they are speaking English,
I couldn't hear an adult in this situation
Everything I say to her she asks, "What?"
 Oblivious will power,
a force of nature,




 You Tarzan,
Me Jane



 Look me up in 15 years
there Baby-feet




 We could all wind up
in the grinding surf





The old drunken boat


 Nostalgia's skeleton
in a state parking lot
under the trees




Trompe l'Oeil



Underneath le bateau ivre




Strange movement of fish




The optical illusionary world
that they inhabit,
 realm of animated cartoons




Difficult for our eyes to follow


Confusion of animal
and element




The unknowable
looking back
at you




 Understood better
once in a jar





 Geiger broth under glass
Carapace in aspic



 As eerie and foreboding


as Lovecraft or Lynch






 Manta Ray Mask Replica







 We've got their genome now


 we can farm GMO crabs at will




Paint-by-number 
genetic engineering,
child's play




 It's OK to crab


 cause they don't have any feelings



 Call that a life?
Never forget the time
 I met a megalops 
on a deep sea bottom





 Sea but through a porthole darkly






 No hurry to go home for dinner
I brought a lunch of tinned sea-food



 Crusty carnivores eat all


 Used to watch Toyko TV 
on San Francisco UHF
no subtitles but often entertaining
Once a breathlessly polite and charming 
cooking lesson by a well-dressed lady
involved pulling apart a live crab






 Evening approaches
This place has a real party rep,
a hot-rod Chevy holiday





I've got something
more domestic in mind




Hang up my beach hat,
Get out some kooky 
platters of my own





 OK, Alameda,
keep up the good work,
catch you on the flip-flops






Peace!
We out








5 September 2016


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