O gloomy hazy heirs of Oakland, if it weren’t for your less-than

     desirable height I might love you

I spilled my Boston absurd imaginations into your night and got

     nothing back but muffled vibrations

Your ******* statues aren’t quite a turn-on to the starry-eyed mill-

     ions who walk your streets each day

Excess scores of madmen seep out of your unwashed pores

Was it your love that kept me gazing at cloudy skies?

Was it your hands that built the offices of unkempt loneliness?

The vacant-eyed gargoyles won't stop staring at my book of angels

     where I keep my holy...
Your dumb ears refuse to listen to that which is greater than my

     childhood dreams

Grand Ave. took me to the top of the 80 and I cried and shouted

     obscenities of pure joy

“Beautiful! Oh beautiful! People!” “Perfection! You crave perfection!”

“Attention! Help me you beautiful people!”

The Ocean whispered to me once
as I hovered twenty feet above it
The shore was frozen at the sand
a blanket of white foam stuck in time
Rivers turned into trees, their
roots longing to return to the city
The sunbathed mountains
looked over and laughed.

Airport shops are something peculiar
selling everything useless
except books and this little pen that fits in my pocket!
Only in my boy jeans of course,
but would you know the airport
bookshop doesn’t even sell poetry?
As if the only ones cultured enough to read it
are those in the city who are
smart enough to never leave.
Or maybe they know that poets
spent the last of their money on the flight ticket
and can’t afford to buy from airport shops anyway.

There's a rainbow in the corner of my window
it must be saying something.
The clouds are gay! The lakes are gay!
The trees are gay! The airplane is gay!
The flight attendant is gay!
Houses hidden in the hills below look up
and wonder if I'm gay too.
The sun hiding at the edge of a cloud
tells me the ocean's gay didn't we know?
She has a fluid sexuality and loses her
temper sometimes we call it flooding.
The sky declared itself androgynous
and changes genders every twelve hours.
The sunset is proudly bisexual
and displays both pink and blue every evening
as it heads to the club and the sky switches genders.
The city of San Francisco is gay!
and the rainbow disappears.

If I were to imagine what a drink feels like
it would be the rain in Humboldt County.
A blanket of cold falling upon me,
eventually making its way to my ears
never letting up, my vision is fog.

Hazy, unrelenting
until the glass becomes a mug
of hot cider, releasing me from the
reality of a stone-cold winter.

I

If I were a poet
I would compose beautiful line
breaks and elegant stanzas.

Similes would be ******* scattered
with alliteration like
stars against a sunset sky.

My tone would be of reason
rather than innocence.
I would refuse to analyze
the meaning of death in literature.

              II

Fortune cookies would be my mantra
and life would be a wiggle
instead of a struggle.

I would pray five times a day
to my journal
most benevolent, ever-merciful.

My poems would not be of peace
of war
or (you)nity
or them here Amur'cans.

              III

My form would be indifferent
and probably never earn me awards
or acceptance to grad school.

Fondness of (parentheses)
may get me compared to e.e. cummings
or completely dismissed
if I were a poet.

Approach the steps and the
bus driver says "Thanks You,"
ignoring the reality
he's driving a bunch of
broke-*** adults whose only wish
is to escape from the middle of nowhere.

Pass the cows, the one steer
in the dairy field stares at
me, looking down once we've left.
Eyes looked intelligent like he should've
been reading T.S. Eliot while sipping green tea.
The two-mile bay goes quickly, holding
its breath as we wave goodbye. It acts
like it never danced before.

Onto another town
the people can't wait to leave.
A crying child enters and the family moves
back, further back, to sit
behind me as I'm writing this poem.

I've never seen innocence so excited
to ride the Greyhound.
Innocence, why won't you shut up?
Failure, please stop glaring at her like that.
She's only a little girl. The smoke
stacks have no comment.

The truck driver keeps appearing
next to us trying to tell us we're all angels.
The trees around the lake agree.
The horses agree, if only
because we harness more horsepower.
The redwoods on each side of the highway
are blocking my view, but I don't
mind we're headed toward the future.
City lights are my future, fog
is my future. The 101 South is my future.
The woman two rows in
front of me sounds like a man.
(S)he is my future.

**** Rio Dell, there's nothing
to do there. Garberville isn't much better.
The green algae pond says hello.
"Will you save Richardson Grove?"
it asks. I didn't answer.

The winding roads are making
me insane. If I didn't
answer, would you notice?
Ferlinghetti must be driving because
he can't keep on track. Oh
where will you take us tonight?

I wake up to the mist on the
water holding my attention.
The Alcatraz of my mind saves
me from myself.