The San Francisco Poem 2005-2006
the house of fools
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm still trying to write another
San Francisco poem. About the hills,
and the vistas opening like ivory
fans, the foghorns, the taste of
eucalyptus and salt, and the young
flesh waiting to be licked by tongues
of light. I've been thinking about it
for a long time now. One simple,
elegant lyric to carry the weight
of such dreams, of the city of mist
and gossamer, cool and grey as a
porcelain cat looking at me from
a bay window.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A poem about evening walks
into the deepening seablue streets;
the late afternoons amidst the towers
when the fog came in, pearl and silk,
the tangy sourdough light, and mornings
when I was truly amazed at how fresh
and glorious the world could be.
I think it's too late now.
Almost twenty years since leaving,
and far longer since the days
were empty and idle
and the nights were dragonheaded
and smokey in Victorian livingrooms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's too late to write the poem
I long for, filled with miles of cold sand
and kelp, long hair and tambourines,
conga drummers and tarot witches,
black domes and orange wedges,
the taste of blonde hashish
and flesh as sweet as pear and
as tart as pomegranate.
Maybe it was all just a pill I once
took, called SanFrancisco -
yet, I can still feel that fog on my face,
I can still smell the patchouli and Nature's Herb Co.,
I can still see an irridescent phoenix rising
from a nest of acidblue ashes,
and I can still hear the deep electric hum
of the trolleys, as they are swallowed up,
under the misty yellow lamps,
by time and Market Street.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We were children, then, and we dreamed
our lives into being in magic parks
and hearthlit drawing-rooms with oaken
mantles and crystal windows with the world
painted onto them. We lived on the high
feast of light and fantasy and the winter
rains, and sat in glowing circles,
laughing for a long time,
for no reason.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.....all the innocence and long hair,
all those drugs, red wine and amber ale
.....Hippie Hill and 45 Lake at first
light.....or was it at the Cafe of the
Two Bridges, drinking mint tea
and stoned senseless on kif,
staring silently into the abyss
for centuries at a night?.......
Oh, I know, I wasn't even there.
I couldn't have been.....but I do remember
something; I just can't quite pin it
down anymore. Something to do
with a pastel city
high on the hills
above the bay,
from 1966 to 1986, including the times
I left, and the times I returned,
because you know why.
Yes I have been thinking about you
for such a long, long time,
San Francisco.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cold
grey
marble
mornings
streets
under
water
endless
seagull
cry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LINES WRITTEN AFTER RE-READING
John Oliver Simon's ROADS TO DAWN LAKE
The moon 3 days
past full. Coffee & cinnamon.
Sunday. Caught in those craters.
Catheaded women. A rush of feelings
from the 60s, California - a sea
of hashish and patchouli,
eucalyptus fogs
in a magical city. So many
keys, and no doors.
We dreamed we were ancient, and we were.
I believed we were all
words on a page
that I would write to make us all
myths.
Acid, cold salt winds, all the beautiful witches,
fires on the beach at night where we
swallowed
the stars
to freeze our childhoods.
40
years later. Memories
darken these skies, but the moon, it's the same
one I stared at then,
high
above the Fillmore
when my body's wolf ran the streets
with its phosphor howls
& my mind
burned to white ash in the red embers
at the bottom
of 10,000 pipes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*L* *S* *D*
Tomorrow
is black samite
and red leather
Victorian rooms filled
with lace
and marble
burnished faces
flickering
in hearth-light
Hashish
and wine and fairy
tales
that all come true
all come true
Forever
And
fog so deep
it never ends
until the Sea
rises
and fills the night
sky
with the dragons of
acid
coming to give us
the
erotic music of childhood
and
death
We will look down
then
to our feet
at the irridescent
foam of years
mingling with cold salt
and
miles of kelp
to see it all
then gone
like love and San Francisco
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANGELS IN THE SUN 1
years of psychedelics
wove my magic carpet thick
with the nostalgic phantasies of bright
kitchens in Victorian houses
in the heart of my City of Dreams
that was many a long spaced-out time ago
stoned senseless in candlelight
by the abandoned Tarot deck. after all
we already knew our way, didn't we? --
burned out, strung out, wasted, crashed again
into the mystic dawn at Alta Plaza:
the whole city a kaleidoscope
for her woebegone children
I never found my way home
now every morning
I hack up the universe into the sink ---
all the precious visions of infinite freedom
and sky-high heads
mixed together
into a cluster of salamander eggs, golden feathers
and a witch's blood
like black dew
permanently at the back of my throat
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2
a series of mythic pinnacles
an irridescence infinitely repeated
white fingers around a black porcelain cup
opal and pearl: the solar system on a necklace
garnet wine like the blinding kiss of an oracle
flashing on and off in the brain, who we were.
grey-winged embryos in the evanescent city
the same images layered and layered
until they become gossamer, transparent
the psychedelic breath
of longhaired foxes
reeking of patchouli and cannibas
and staring saucer-eyed
into the midnight skies
searching for the copper domes and crystal spires
of home
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3
under a black dome
the witch held me between her thighs
until the moon passed over us
a phoenix egg remained
in the hot white ashes of hashish
the city filled with silver pinwheels
an eye in the middle of each
who can say what beings
passed through this dream, watching us
from their own hallucinations?
years later
after it was over
it wasn't
werewolves still danced through the fog
the sky was still filled with glowing V-shaped vessels
I still had coffee with vampires in the Financial District
and sometimes, now
I still wander, alone, in the Tea Gardens
waiting for that witch's
ghost
to rip my head off
and throw it back
to that hashish moon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1980
my dream-city
has long dissolved
in the acids and mists
of the decades
yet
I still inhabit those grey spaces
between streets
and apartment buildings, where
the low voices
of mannequins in empty store fronts
drift in and out
of barred windows, from
beneath piles of newspapers
and across the tarpaper rooftops
foghorns
still echo in a brain
still burning
with cigarette smoke, whiskey and late nights
in San Francisco
down among the floating towers and locked up
flower stands
drunk on the cold salt winds blowing
for miles
up the great cavern of Market Street
into the dark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
who is the genius
of san francisco
now?
what
grey cat on what
fire escape
climbs to what tarpaper rooftop
to cry out
to the fog on midnights
of
ultimate romance?
what
dreams in silver
still
linger behind the lace
and mystery,
bay windows and
misthaunted walks
at midnight
up and down those
timeless streets?
what
fragile porcelain ghost
yet remains
of lost loves and Sundays
in cafes
that were never there?
*
who
is drunk and stoned and sober
now
in all those rooms
all those buildings
all those neighborhoods
of gingko and glass and pewter
what
young flesh trembles
and opens its mouth
on trolleys
under.the golden lamps
to the red kisses
of those succubus nights?
*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
who
writes now
in those gossamer Victorians
of all that beauty
evaporating
in their arms
who scribbles
fragments lost as they
are written
like the light
on eucalyptus leaves
and the razor chill
of
salty afternoons
rolling in
on the endless echo
of
foghorns, blue smoke and coffee steam
and
the breathless, phantom dreams i left
behind
in all those beloved places
of the mind
i call san francisco
*
who?
g sutton breiding
20 February 2009