The Study of Leonard Hughes
11.29.2005
Ode to the Bay Area
In the second story of the
City Lights bookstore,
I am surrounded by Kerouac’s marijuana and
Ginsberg’s pronouncements of opium,
When I begin this poem. I look out the window.
In San Francisco,
The streets are congested.
Hindu, Maltese, Lebanese and Northern Italian
In leather. I inhale sharkskin from the Cuban
Walking next to my friend. The Spanish
Are spewing obscenities in the streets,
Steaming where the French under gas-lamps are laughing.
I am gawking at blacks with teeth like white meat in the dim
Bazaar. I see Russians in black coats, buttoned so tight that
Lenin’s corpse might be buttoned inside,
Whispering to all passersby.
Take in SBC Park,
A brick stack, smoky and metallic,
Structurally skeletal with gaps in its skin,
Showing clumps of fans cheering,
They are organs pulsing within.
Picture Alcatraz,
Where memories of con artist, bootleggers, Tommy
Gun squeezers and raincoat escapists once breathed.
I’m told that in the 1920’s,
Magicians visited this place frequently.
They liked to be locked in shackled aquariums
Filled with water,
Have needles shoved down their throats,
And for top dollar,
Throw up fire.
I’m on Columbus Street!
The smells peak in,
Garlic burning sweet and foul,
Mixed with artichoke like cologne in a bar prominent
With gin. Herein, the wine is woody, the diner’s conversation
Abrupt, violent.
I have to walk out to the misty streets for silence.
Chinatown. Take a whiff and try
Not to drown in soy.
Instead of chicken, I order the broth,
Getting tentacles and wide-eyed heads.
Best of all, the eels.
Eat their skin, my friends tell me. A rare delicacy!
It peels.
I am interrupted
(thankfully)
By a trumpet blubbering. Outside the street is cleared,
Where a limo follows behind a marching band.
A black suited Buddhist throws out strips of papers,
Prayers scattering the streets like black pepper on steak.
In the second story of City Lights,
Where I hide from my native urbanity,
My comrade asks me if
This metropolis has rewarded me
With some stimulation. Why sure, I exclaim!
Just read this poem.
- posted by Brock @ 1:10 PM 8 comments
