San Francisco and other poetic dreams | Edited by Don Brennan

San Francisco and other poetic dreams is made possible by Writers workshop 146 Leavenworth St. San Francisco CA. Edited by Don Brennan. Program Director at jennywileysf@hotmail.com, or drop by the Community Arts Studio.

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. William S. Burroughs.

Walk the violent Sun by

Don Brennan

Walk in the violent sun,

Dangerous traveler.Scribble your name

Into the database, kick up some dust.

Work your toes into wet sand, lie down for a while ants

and biting insects under cover. Let the dark night bring you peace.

Star will sing you to sleep.

Keep yourself safe for now, until your predatory history

Curled in the high grass begins stretching at drawn, until you

hear it coughing like a jaguar after restless sleep; a big cat coughing

gunshots.

Soon enough you will learn

To drop down at the sound.

With approaching menace your eyes will wire themselves

to the forces pounding inside your ribcage.

Fear is your truth, traveler, the sun your enraged but generous

Mother who keeps her distance for you sake,

That you might discover

courage

knowledge

and. oh yes, love on the path twisting

towards our survival.

Mysticism by O D. Ludyeh

in

no

sound

neither

any

light

in

no

space

nor

any

time

in

but

all-awing

all-writhing

all-being

which

manifest

only

as

silence

and

stillness

Summer Scene’06 by Carlos Ramirez

 kid artists mark up

Fairmount School’s playground

With chalk sticks, rainbow spectrum

Hola Leonardo, Jesus, Sandra

Earth,Mars Neptune, Pluto

Building on stilts, wears red shoes

Hop scotch diagram sealed to the asphalt

Jungle gym playhouse bright and new

Arena for rollicking shrieks,agitated sounds

Teachers in turn attend to their work beat watch.

On turk street by Charles Curtis Balckwell

So we ran up Turk Street, and so serious

past 5th Avenue where the Ancient Aztec ghost roam

Just before arriving with aspirins

Mental anxiety had become home, tension

in my temples of worship

The ocean waved at us

I could hear it sloshing for miles away, his trumpet to love

became full of spite

The long bus ride down Geary street caused sequins

to exit the city the same as Cousin Henry

Over on Skid Row, where shopping carts

stay greased and ready for travel

Being clean in anticipation of coins

falling, we begged hard

Alone, an ex-boxer sent a query letter suggesting

revenge, in the ring of course,

Now in the shadows of love

We embrace

Coins falling from holes in my pockets

She left me weeping at the moon

instead of our monful regrets

of not enough money to sleep.

Tenderloin neighborhood by Juan Carlos Vásquez

Dead walking,

nude crawling in a love parade,

the return of the ambulances

without roads,

when I am close to a blissful high  

I long a lot for

caresses,

to help me fall asleep

it is night,

six months have gone by

between incenses over graves,

and a celestial restlessness,

visions of jupiter compacted into pipes.

This face cannot be mine

the face of Sunday

at noon.

If it wasn't noon

and had I something to do

these damn ambulance sirens

would not torment me

with their regrets.

How do I recover with punches

the street's quietness,

how do I destroy with an axe

the remembrances from my veins

without diving in a tub

to masturbate.

there is a horrible smell of beer,

so romantic yet so pathetic,

There are ideas of escape, and

lasting words.

if I had a dog his barking

would convince me but I have no dog,

only nights find I joy in contempt,

and instead of I protest

everything induce me

into a terrible and sorrowful laughter.

Picture of cover: thom masat (in Unsplash). Public domain.

Rennon Mariano, thank you for providing the requested information.