This side of downtown
Sort of a frumpy part of town
we don't mind
There are also many new "market-rate" buildings
which I tend to ignore in my image capture adventures
we don't mind
There are also many new "market-rate" buildings
which I tend to ignore in my image capture adventures
Preferring instead to unearth evidence
of earlier civilizations 
Architectural artifacts of defunct religions
serve a fairly common denominator still
Wade in the water, children
Windows that stay blind
across from the non-stop after dark park
a foreboding refuge for who knows who
Windows that let in little light
The mind externalized
the skull and the sky
Valuable advertising exhibition space
visible to the incessant highway traffic
Its neglected state is also somehow its charm
Not to say that it is entirely neglected
A tailor shop
I have in fact patronized myself
I have in fact patronized myself
though I've yet to purchase a bow tie
You phone them
and someone answers the door
Sales here benefit the public library
I've been intending to bring them a bagful
Good old Hotel Carles
I am acquainted with a resident who works
at the Cannabis shop around the corner from me
Green Man mural on the Carles
It's a place in space
calm most of the time
calm most of the time
Occasionally it's not so placid
I stumbled into breaking news
That's Deborah Villalon I remember
from local TV and behind her
the Oakland police PR lady
Someone was shot to death
a planned hit one block from
Police Headquarters
This fellow mops the blood spill
Two reporters interview the decedent's mother
He had just driven here from San Francisco
Life is touch and go
in the ghetto and beyond
in the ghetto and beyond
Last street before downtown
an impersonal precinct in the dusk
This lit-up pad hangs in the air
like an anachronism
Indoor dining makes a comeback
Worsening during the post-panic pandemic
This was the hell's half-acre that 9th street
in Old Oakland became at night
My prayers were answered & it is now gone
The club no doubt finally pushed lawlessness too far
it attracted the gangster types
Six were shot here in a January melee
O happy day
A recently arrived painting studio
Indoor and out
It's a wavy afternoon
As I photographed this graffiti fence...
This wee bird was flying around me oddly
After a moment he squeezed through a space in the fence
I saw a guy was weeding close by in the next yard
and realized the Finch I think was defending its nest
A deserted spot where I stop to bask in vitamin D
it matches my gloves as it were
Closer to home a jumble spot
the past is always with you
in fact it's not even the past
Summer sky on 9th street
Time to change the light bulb
in graffittiland
Uh-oh Spike
What's coming this way?
Not the jail on wheels
to harsh our mellow
People have a right to self defense
(original period Black Panther artwork)
Tropical moisture
pronounced radiating rays
from my secondary smoke spot picnic table
April-August 2021
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