BONZAI!!!

Penetrating deep into a sideshow featuring arboreal dwarves, 

the Flaneur risks charges of obsession and compulsion as he reviews his afternoon.

1.

Traveling hopefully

Where am I off to today?

 The extensive gardens in Lakeside Park

Large monarch butterflies loll languidly,

On a wistful note some trees turn to rust

In particular to stylized realm of a Bonzai arboretum

Beginning with a conversation between stones,

This is a Bonzai

In blossom the first week of January

I have so much affection 

I want to pet them like a dog

Like a real tree-cuddler

Illusions of scale,

Californian trees have range

An adorable quartet,

From a great redwood to a miniscule bijou

Like driftwood come back to life

This tree had a discernible personality,

A small Ent from Middle Earth

None of the distortions of dwarfism,

A perfect miniature tree, 

In the garden of Doctor Praetorius

A driftwood marlin becomes a tree form

In a display of curiosities

A tree only a mother could love,

Waving like a fairy-tale mouse

Classic form

Inhibition of growth combined 

With the zen of sculptural abstraction

A crusty docent told me that the Kamikaze pilots

Actually shouted a different phase than Bonzai!

The grostesque is the eye of the beholder

Roots cling to some porous rock,

Down to the nuts and bolts of it

2.

Into the outer garden

I spent contented hour on yon bench

Basking in the sunny but still cool weather

Bird of Paradise

Look at the flower near the center,

A tiny hummingbird approaches it

He takes a drink from it,
"little bee bird, love you"
wrote Philip Whalen

Saint Francis is often with me

Whenever I'm out of doors

Sometimes so is this strange little girl

She was so enraptured by the birds and the flowers

That she wandered here from Fairyland

The bus left without her and she never went home

She became a feral flower child

Sleeping in tree trunks and sheds

Slipping into numerous picnics in the park

Today this statue is her only memory

3.

Interesting notes on the way out

I love these all year long

Hard to image the color correctly

A dragonard plinth

On my way out of the Park,

Areas of light and dark

A secret world inside the firmament of a tree

And in a thicket,

The first red buds of a new year

6 January 2015

A Strange Neighborhood

 

A strange neighborhood perhaps,

Nevertheless one adapts

The Flaneur takes a daylight walk to reconnoiter two odd buildings on Eighth street.

Tonight we going to pitch a ball,

Down to the union hall

A part of town with its own style

Different than most places

  Workers create the wealth of nations

Workers of the World unite

Determined not to be made to suffer

Despite false rationalizations for austerity

 The building survives the by-gone Church

Cornerstone of a working class populace

Trees cast shadows in reflected light

  A mood of redemption

 Hope for a New Year

  Green front window

Past, present, and future

 Noble trees stand up to the relentless highway

 Never seen anyone there  

In the post-Catholic era

 Flowers last through the winter

Home Sweet Home

Iron bars are advised I suppose

 

3 January 2015

Old Haunts, Old Friend, New Year

1.

Longtime no double-O old pal Joey Know.

1.

Ferry Land

 We re-enacted a lunch we once had 

Behind the distorting window

We discussed the death of Van Gogh,

Shot by a young French punk aping 

A Wild West cowboy with a gun

Luminescent sky of January,

Up to the balcony of the Ferry landing,

No ferry service on Winter weekends

 Mechanical design window

Today's ceiling of clouds

Clearing in our Northern skies,

Bryter layter

2. 

Never Never Land

 As seen from Mountain View cemetery

 Robber Baron Heights,

Just had to think about it

 And there we were

 This was thanks to Joe's new auto

There it is hiding behind a mausoleum

It felt like a space ship capsule

To one who so rarely rides in such coaches

 Thirty years ago the angel 

Was still completely intact after a century,

The hat adds to the sadness

 Joey observed that the two black marble pillars

Refracted the light with a marked difference

One was yellow/green, the other red/blue

Just another uplifting day in Oakland

4 January 2014

Crab Cove New Year

The tide had receded 

When the year was less than 24 hours in, 

The Flaneur returned to an elysium 

of winter birds and evocative ruins

 Late sun delineated familiar haunts

 A sphinx contemplates the remote

 All your cities lie in dust

  Lion and stag,

 torso and trousers,

The moon got involved

Red trees and green grass, 

January the first

1 January 2015