Montgomery Street Cleaning

The German poet, bartender, magician, wanderer, playwright, refugee, and performer

who was Exiled in Vienna

arrived at the States United in 1933.

Uniting people was a thing in the thirties.

She had drive. She was a hitchhiker. It took her places

she had never been before.

In 1952 she stopped.

In 1952 she stayed around

because of the fog.

Because of the fog, she left

no more. Set up a shop with no-where’s to sell

on Montgomery Street,

1010 or in the closet -1014

in North Beach on the hills of San Francisco

where All the artists cranked

Out-

Work-

Inspiration

with little more than smoke and mirrors

they beat the Underdogs.

Panned dirt. Found gold. 

The difference between street level lingo

and horned poetic motifs.

Looking back now about it All,

she said the shower was the best, it was

on the roof.  After a rowdy, stinky night

she would disrobe in the Pacific Bay air

and sacrifice her body to hot beads

pelting her thick Austrian skin under New York neon gas,

atop sirens and broken glasses rolling below.

The steam from her body mixed with the fog in the air 

exchanged vows, made love to each other there 

with ruth standing in the middle in

all lower cases, cleansed.

She rose above the ruth-less-ness of it All

below her. She sticks out her thumb, finally

making the last word a gesture 

of straighter lines and mist ends.

She looks a head, she looks be hind and she finds All is again

circularity, repetition, rhythm,

and heart beats bumming free rides to the top. 

Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Text after image:

"The bench to remember George Sterling is on a San Francisco hill that commands the Golden Gate Sterling: Tribute By Idwal Jones(S. F. Examiner, November 18, 1926) GEORGE STERLING, touching on his fifty-seventh year, and feeling wearied turned his face to the wall and died. He quitted this life from his little room in the Bohemian Club, and with no more regret than a bird quitting a twig. This was somewhere between 7 o’clock of Tuesday night and noon yesterday. No mat-ter when. For the curtain had fallen on the drama of San Francisco’s Bohemia in which he had been master of revelry for two golden and charming decades. The Dionysian had drunk the cup to the lees, and found the end of life bitter. The reason for living was past finding out. He said good-by to no one. To say good-by would have caused his friends grief. They are many, and they all wept, for he was an exquisite poet, and a charming and loyal friend. I last saw him two weeks ago. We had walked arm in arm through dense fog at midnight, and we..."

By a heir

On a full moon night
near the solstice,
there was no gentle way
to be honest
under the naturally blue light.

I have long said,
everything travels in waves,
like this; light, sound, heat, idea,
emotion, news and aromas.

It made me angry
to remember
standing there.
He said I should do it,
for the money, for some sense
of justice
I ought to
make an effort,
as if it were worth going
backward.

There is no gold in those hills
waiting for me,
He disagrees.

For now, I tell him
I am still too busy.
And he knows how cold it is already
and knows it is too cruel to drop more
on me.

I reminisce how
many moons ago
I dreamt myself right here,
and never needed to remember
how it all happened.

Honestly, there is nothing left there
of value
for me.
I know I will have to go
back there, as the only child, the only one
who will-
It will cost them
only a little peace
when all has been
said and nothing done.

You left part of you
exposed there and turning blue
waiting for you to finally go back
and bury the body
deep in the hills
like treasures of the past.

We finally agreed,
a wave of relief washed over us both
Not Now-
in due time
it will come needing me
and my cold-hearted honesty
in the full moonlight.



Painting by Ilya Repin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Granular

The moon was the same this morn,
the sun did come around,
eventually,
the hourglasses agreed with the sky
for once
what was needed was more
sand,
some moonrock,
and salt water.

All these things were sought
outside of day and night
in a blur of grey
it was just bright enough to find
the soundness, the source
which would not part
with the wind.

And it came down to all hours.
All Hail-
the spin master, mixing
time with light,
blind to the difference of circles
ingrained.




Artwork by Peder Balke, 1864 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Space flavor

Swallowing photons

every breath man meanders

tastelessly obscene

Painting By Peter Graham (1836 - 1921) (Scottish) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Seine

Nets needed their holes
as much as the lines, holed in
meaning, bold definition.






Image credited By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cords work

Cords work

themselves into fetal knots

while dust collects

Itself.

Boxes commonly contain cherished contents

to be kept out of touch, like death and memory.

Musicians and writers make notes 

and draw out descriptions,

Artists picture

new sound, reason, 

and likeness in the jagged line

that makes connections.

Verbs hang in midair proposing movement;

chores, change, promises, and poetry

for nouns to untangle. 

Electricity junkies, 

trying twisted ways to say 

what was entangled worked. 

Painting by Hans Dahl, 'Girl in a field knitting' c. 1879 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Courthouse, North County Division

Under the gravity of the situation,

somber faces and the grey sky were suitable.

Walls were also reliable in their place,

one could depend on the sole purpose

of holding up-standards

and keeping apart-reactions.

The cement colored building stands unphased

and stained with gutter rain streaks

as if the structure shed a tear and smeared its makeup.

The four-hundred and eighty-four small square window panes

allow white graph paper light, tinged with green edges spill into the

Security Checkpoint.

The cage presents itself guarded.

Red hands enter through the back,

while white hairs breed in single file lines.

This is where we are all turned in, (the gates

are not pearl) they scan for sharp objects 
with invisible laser fingers.

The grey walls watch over all the pleading people,

mallets mark ballots like bass drums

with skin stretched tight over the top.

Heartbeats happen to match beads of rain on glass.
Indoors, behind dividing walls, we are all dry and

held for safekeeping in the big grey house.

Image credit by Carol M. Highsmith (Monroe, Louisianna) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.