The Fall of America

It's like the garden is giving

a big fuck you to the world

Psychedelic Pop art

In contemporary packaging

This apples were so tart

and flavorful

they almost hurt your mouth

November window

in pleasant afternoon sunlight

Looks like a stretch mini,

sort of defeats the purpose

Redwood trees are

a source of strength

for all who hug them

Flowers demand attention

All the way over to Oakland

Although East 14th Street

is a locale one reads about

and seldom sees,

This is a gallery in Old Oakland

safe for grandfathers out walking

Black nationalism is

a slippery slope,

Intimidation is used to  justify

police impunity and militarism

in the eyes of the timid

Well

so that where they were going

New mural on old

Washington street building

Hold on a second

let this car go by

Yikes

the shock of the new

Abstract figurative

much farther out than

the usual cheap surrealist

kitsch murals

Faces emerge from

unlikely elements

a striped trunk for a nose

a puka shell for an eyeball

 My painterly perspective

is gratified by the new

efflorescence

Deep in the garden

at Lakeside Park

A young Mother and daughter

were nearby but unable

to see this wigged-out specimen

Don't miss this, I called to them,

Is it hard?

the Mother asked me,

The little girl was like

a girl in a fairytale

as she approached and

delicately touched the

floral corpus

Another bus stop

where sometimes I wait

Across from the cathedral

where I sometimes

kneel down and pray

October-November 2017