Round Trip to Orinda

 

Oakland to Orinda to Oakland

Contra Costa county and back

to see a medical specialist

All Hallows Eve

morning

 Now there's something scary

 Always was something fishy

about this place

 Someone across Washington street

has expressed a different response

 I'm up and out early

walking to my connection

 A ten-car train

 

 Good-bye, good-bye

good-bye

 A charming niche town

a nook in the Hills

 Orinda

a little Vermont 

 Hey Orinda,
 look who's come to town

 

 Feels like a dream

 of a vaguely 

familiar place

 My way is uncertain

my purse is slender

 I try to follow

the pictographic map

to no avail

 Leaving the high-perched

BART station involves

a circular maze of walkways

 A charming girl walked me through

she was African-American and tall

 Smitten I made her laugh

The office was nearby,

It really is a beautiful

township

 An hour in the waiting room

I was quite early,

Several chapters went by

of The Great Gatsby,

a bit overwritten but poetic

 All Souls Day

Wednesday

 Patience is grace

 The view from the next waiting room

where they had a plastic jack-o-lantern

full of candy

Indulging because it's Halloween

I was animated by the time
I saw the doctor

 That happened

I made the most of happenstance

to gather a little adventure



Here's a sculpture of rusty wrenches
jutting out from the sidewalk

As I approached the center

a shabby black unmarked
police car drove past,

looked me over out of boredom,

Looked like he was on negro patrol

You see this from the highway but

I had only driven through town once,

when I lived briefly with my Brother

in Contra Costa county

 Mostly affluent white people

but Meso-American roots

were also observable

 A fun place

I'm getting an impression

 Whimsical, cute...

 

 Old fashioned

a little bit cornball

A real toy town

Trains drop you off

Mains street culminates in a round-about

an amusement park carousel

 So let's check out 

the fun house

 Well let's see the wax,

proof is in the pudding

O wow...

Does whatever a spider can

 Iron Man

looks imposing

a little right-wing

and unbending,

Oh that's right,

the guy plays him ironically

 

 Dead Elvis

rides again

 Robot from 70s sci-fi serial,

I saw it when it came out--

all but forgotten now

 There's the local civic

 landmark of record

 Lurching around town

on a haunted holiday

 

Free movie night,

Sounds interesting

but may be crowded

Marble wings to

fly to Wonderland

 Shall we go in?

 Oh yes

popular aesthetic  

jack-pot moderne

 Masculine display

the male gaze

 That quiet small town

society's still intact

weathers fine

mass extinction far far away

vibe

 Let's all go to the lobby

I'm waiting until dark

to resume my trick-or-treats

 

 Reminds me I had to 

produce a urine sample

and I had just taken a leak

 Man troubles

 

 Some people weren't happy

about the nudity

 There was talk in Toy Town

 No cowardly lions

we take the leap

 Looks like it's the edge of town

we've reached the round-about

Short but jam-packed

Orinda knows how

to market itself

 Back to my urban squalor

my wand still lit

A spooky Halloween at home
Trick-or-treats in early dark
then determined rain
shut it all down at nine,
Classical phantasms on radio

31 October 2016