Summer Travels Part I

Summer Travel

on College Avenue

For one brief and shining moment in June mostly

traffic along this over-used artery quiets down

almost like the old home-town it used to seem like

in the hazy crazy days of Summers past

The light just right
morning house in Berkeley
on my way downhill
to Telegraph herb shop

Some people have all the luck

Lounging louche

in day-glow circumstances

life of Riley

Self-medicating

mico-doses of LSD

by the mushroom lamp

Into every life

let a few cactus quill

intrude

Ye olde book shop

Formerly Pendragon

hence the sign

As fabulous

and anachronistic

as its namesake

One keeps on smiling,

another empty shop

Morningtide in Rockridge

a land of pretty pastel

buildings

Another chance

Shadows in the Summer

forenoon

Who's this?

A dog's eyes follow

Only the mascot

of the massive

beer truck

The populace demands

its brew

this tie of the year

Past beer-drinking myself

used to love it

but I somehow aged out

of its agreeing with me

Yet don't put away

your party dress

there's life in the old

celebrant yet

Extraordinary colors

in the trees

A mysterious book

found at Rockridge library

image-captured in the restroom,

Expensive production

no press named

ambiguous leftist expose

or raw rightwing positions papers?

Rumsfeld Wolfowitz

war plans--still in play

Diesel

another quixotic

independent bookshop

I've attended poetry galore

John Waters rocked the house

a few years ago

Your Flaneur was there

So tall a tree

to be in someone's

backyard

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back where I began,

in fact my first pad in Berkeley

was on nearby Benvenue

where Patty Hearst

got snatched

earlier the same decade

 

 

 

 

29 July-7 August 2017