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
