Thursday, August 31, 2017

The Summoning Clouds










The Summer drifts past
O saisons, O chateaux







In of a Summer evening
clouds summon me outside
me and my shadow
my new smart-phone cam



Still one place to go








The world is afire
down at the Port










Reflected in emergency windows



The hapless party boat
afloat on the notion
 that it is unsinkable






Yet calmness pervades


The Relief ship is here
I can relax and exhale













I left a trail
to find my way home


The quality of light deepens
















Pass along the way
a fellow nocturnal angler
large shore bird
on the rail




Everything's up in the air
up in the sky




The clouds summon me
back the way I came





And for this moment


the center holds






July 2017

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The Weekend at a Clip



















Acid incense and balloons
(without the LSD or the incense)






Lots of cosmic debris in the atmosphere
the Flaneur plays it cool




The Patina of Time



Too long indoors
underneath the lamp



With my carafe
and my giraffe

Time for a wee hejira
I go out I go out



The dogs bark
but the caravan
moves on

Saturday


Better jump down a manhole
light yourself a candle



Appearance of new rocks
perpetually wet

A tad creepy



Some sort of  stickiness
to the touch
varnished in place





This is "Joey"
says he can't be
a white supremacist
because he identifies
as "Japanese-American"
(one euro, one Japanese parent)
He and the imbeciles
of his alt-right social media group
 held-up  San Francisco by getting a permit
to rally on Chrissie field
When thousands vowed to show up
they announced they'd have instead
a "press conference" at Alamo Square,
The cops put a fence around it
as Mayor Lee continued to denounce
them as a hate group,
This schmuck ran around
popping up on Facebook
mis-representing free speech
and hiding from the people
he challenged to a fight,
Think of the money they cost the City
in their moronic attempt to disrupt
"Pelosi country"


Saturday Night












Chinatown fair 10PM
deserted at night



Bulbous amusements
at rest



Seagull
on a pirate ship
looks toward the estuary

Lights change hue
on another dormant ride







Graffiti gate
changes hues



The rat race
takes a brief
breather



Ought stash and budget depleted
I managed an cannabis-infused
olive oil high just by
applying the oil to containers
that had held the super-potent herb

I think the mind
in strengthened
by occasionally letting go
of the strings
of rationality












4.
Atypical Sunday Outing






The class war, race war
and stealth attempts on decency
continued today over in Berkeley
This "free speech" rally was
self-identified as a drive
to deny free speech to Marxists,
The cowards hid behind police protection
as over 7,000 people showed up to disagree,
Then the Black Bloc showed up
leaped over the fence around their playground
and proceeded to kick large ugly ass
forcing the alt-righters from the park
and chasing them down the street
As a local musical genius wrote,
There's a bad moon on the rise





A tagger bombed the XO location
BART will obliterate it very promptly,
This artist's work has figured
in two previous Flaneur posts
by co-inky-dink



Down to the pleasant breezes
of the Port and the Square
on a day quite hotter than usual
but my euphoria deficit
makes it less than interesting today

Lo and behold



I look over at a little pier
and see two shiny objects
that turn out to be two swift
vape pens loaded with hash oil
that someone abandoned

O happy days





The Night Light
a club specializing in garage rock
As I passed it I noted this
reflective Marines decal on a van
then spied this dashing mannequin
A statement of exactly what
I know not but I sort of dug it
especially the Prince shirt,
I think it was to be used as
a stage prop by a band
unloading their van,
One of these cats watched me
 take these shots with smile
than gave me his sincere thumbs up,
Like my late older brother once said,
You're still like a kid,
I replied that I
just never joined
the other side











Semper fi
y'all



Sometimes you just got to
leave your trobles on the doorstep
and row row row your boat



                                                         25-26 August 2017




Saturday, August 26, 2017

Roman Noir





A macabre twist
to my usual tranquil
 Sunday outing



A scarlet dahlia





The day had a strange
color to it
Broken glass at
the XO location






 Someone smashed
last Sunday's XO vessel
Expected it would happen
much sooner
An acceptable response






 
Then the lurid
distasteful spectacle
of American Idol auditions
had seized the day at
Jack London Square





 The scene was crawling
with Oakland cops
star-struck in make-believe
television land


So I hopped on the #12 bus
and rode it over to Lakeside park



I was bound for the fountain
to have a relatively wind-free smoke

But when I got there
 I found it difficult
to believe my eyes,
I saw someone there in repose
and as I approached it seemed
as if it was a woman with
remarkably large breasts
 and no shirt,
As I got nearer I saw that
she was wearing a shirt,
an approximate skin tone shirt,
She had a cloth over her face
and seemed somehow
discombobulated
almost disarticulated








A large display of Dahlias
in the park's garden







She seemed rather
dangerously naïve
in her obliviousness,
this being a rather louche
 and fairly deserted area




 One must remember
Nature's strong drives
the industrious bee





The tableau recalled for me
the ultimate Los Angeles
Hollywood's precautionary
unsolved mystery
The Black Dahlia

In the 1940s
the body of young woman
which had been severed
into two pieces
like the woman-sawed-in-half
magic trick only real,


The story has became an archetypal one
Films and books
theories and conjecture
including author James Elroy
who believes the Black Dahlia killer
 murdered Elroy's mother as well,
Another estranged son published
a book putatively proving
that the murderer was his own father
a doctor and madman






Her name was Elizabeth Short
and she was from the Northeast,
Her remains are here in Oakland
buried at my old hang-out
Mountain View cemetery,
My ex and I once visited it
using a guide-book entitled
Permanent Californians















The bee wants in




I was slightly stunned
and decided to sit opposite her
where the fountain precluded spying
for my momentary pause,
I saw a black guy pass her
and slow down to have a good look,
Can't blame him
 that surgically enhanced figure
would slow down most men,
She seemed to trust her fate
asleep and unprotected in public

When he shifted a bit I was
relieved to have evidence
 she was still alive,
As I proceeded toward the garden
I stopped for a few image captures,
After I did I noticed three young guys
had seen me as they approached
 when they got even with her
they twigged on and laughed
I wasn't getting randy
I was scratching instead
my head





Later on it dawned on me
that she would be perfect
bait for a police sting,
that maybe that was what was
going on with her in fact,
if so they must have
perked up at my behavior,
Sorry to disappoint
but sooner protect her
than interfere with her



There's that bee again,
Get you some
Mr Bee










20 August 2017