Oakland Outsider

Street surrealist

drive-by

The Berkeley Flaneur

morphs into another avatar

the Oakland Outsider

Viewed askance

by some natives

as a stranger

who gets stranger
by the hour

1.

Wild bird attrition caused

by greedy stupid

architecture

Bird killer

façade

Obstructing the flight path

from the hills and the estuary

to the Bay

It's really just a façade too

a narrow corridor rooms

stacked up to the sky

A drastic fall off

An Escher-like maze

reflective and deadly

for avifauna

Latest casualty

I've also recovered

a hummingbird

who met then same fate

2.

Vehicular manslaughter

Scan your fingerprints

into the Matrix

A Mercedes jeep

how gaudy and absurd

One has little choice

look at Jacko

Ram tough truck

with trailer

Oakland Zoology

The Illuminaries stash

of painting supplies

City-sanctioned muralists

with execrable taste

Hunky Harley-Davidson

looks like a '58 Chevy

from the back

Smoke of the wildfires

colors the sky,

A motorized tall ship

heads out to open water

I'm about ready for

a Tequila sunrise

Theatre of cruelty

of the absurd

Insane clown president

Secretly

hope this potable water

supply will come

to someone's rescue

3.

Children's Fairyland

Exposed

The approach has been in disarray

lots of street construction

The Children's Fairyland

 Adults

accompanied by children

only

Let's see if

I can sneak inside

A book or a screen is one thing,

But the ability to sit and ride on

 Alice in Wonderland characters

Now you're talking

 a kid's language

It's a strange enough place

a patch-work quilt

of a child's imaginings

Rabbit loiters

on his day off

Closed Monday

The live oaks

in their fantastic forms

amplify the fantasy here

like very few other

amusement parks

Little kids love it here--

no scares even on

Halloween

They changed her race

The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe

into a dark-skinned lady

Sort of courts the stereotype--

"so many children

she didn't know what to do"

Slowly gradually

the wildfires are

being contained

We still must endure

the insidious smoke

Let's pretend

It's a happy ending

As they say in

East London

Topiary dragon

did inhale

smoking still

Smokey phantasms

camp followers

of the Northern wildfires

October 2017