1. COME, THE REVOLUTION
Juan was at
The winter solstice.
But so was everyone.
His last name
Didn’t catch,
Anonymously equal
Under a setting sun.
Light comes from
Many directions.
Juanita from her skew line.
Pablo across his fault-line
Falling, falling, falling
Towards wide white lines
Covering ice-cream earth.
Fernando Real
Knows nothing is real
If you don’t feel
It blowing through the field
dipping, then jiving in manic motion.
Sun turning butter yellow
Over margarines of white,
Not so late afternoon
Soaking northern half-light;
Was bad luck full day
People went cray-cray
With winter, winter yet to come,
Dead bad boys of winter
Dying till solstice day was done.
Come, the revolution
When the moon is done
Just this phase
Will pass this way
Will of dusk and dawn be done
Spring is calling Juan to come.
2. Comus Parade
We are just a place,
Subject and a face,
Lillies in a row
Rose again for Carnival.
Shouts in willow rows,
Setting within hyacinths,
Looming long parade
Brushes final strokes.
Empty hides the space,
Where silence softly goes,
Before the wave applauds
Coming of the float.
I float and so do you,
Beneath the sea of beads,
Tossed by mermaids out
Nowhere left to gloat.
My Comus, come to me,
When the marchers stop,
Hides their colored masks,
To see and not to see.
We are meant to be,
An object and a dream,
Beyond their grand affair,
Stands nothingness.
3. Sometimes I feel San Francisco
Sometimes I feel the Barrio’s
just a place of the mind,
Like any other place of fiction and fact
into randomness combined.
That makes it a poem.
But in yon eyes, strange tongues
of the Mission, a place where indigents
Like me travail. Where anywhere the sun
makes me feel the Barrio is a place for the feet.
The rest is poetry.
4. Rolling St. Charles Line
Papa’s gone, goodbye,
Streetcar pauses, sighs;
Circles spin,
Looms, begins,
Streaming down the battle ground.
Dear, shed not a tear,
Grunting, grinding gears;
Daylight fakes,
Heaven’s sake,
Floating down the sleek track’s line.
Wires climbing high,
Rolling St. Charles line;
Wheels won’t stop,
Pigeons hop,
Waking, stalking, coffee talking.
Screech, another face,
Staring hidden grace;
Neutral ground,
Turnaround,
Black and blue and white floor space.
Final station, pops,
Filing out bebop;
Children smile,
Running wild,
Loving what’s left for life.
Conductor winks red eye,
“Lawdy,, by and by;”
Carefree moths,
Secret thoughts,
Rapid transit passing antics.
Daddy won’t be back,
Glides on better track;
Do your best
Don’t forget,
Build a future, be romantic.