On 16th and Valencia
Chrismas lights blink all through the year.
"Esta Noche" looks like my kind of bar. I like my genders
slightly stirred.
Sergio, the outreach worker, calls it "Esta Nightmare"
and hands out condoms to women who used to be
men, who he'll fuck
after the lights have stopped their garish show.
There is cilantro in the air
and the sweet smell of muscled men
holding hands. I get hungry watching
the brown skinned butches with their femmes.
In the gutter on the corner of 17th and Mission
if you look closely enough
you might see a twenty dollar bill,
a collection of rotting teeth,
a small baggie of sticky yellow cocaine
to shoot along with your black tar. Shards
of green-night train-glass, above it
on the curb is a hooker's pride.
She negotiates a ten dollar trick.
If you look at her too long
she'll kick your ass.
And the school girls on 24th and Guerrero
roll up their skirts before stepping through the arches
of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. One of them
is pregnant for sure, and the other one will be soon, and neither
of them knows what hell really means, at least
not yet.
There's a new 99 cent store next to the place where you can buy rosaries
and first communion dresses, and the taqueria that's been there for 25 years
now offers vegan alternatives. You can still buy crack on the corner in front of McDonalds.
Things haven't changed all that much,
you can still get all you need in the Mission,
but now if you want you can have a cute white boy
pierce you and slide a ring through your nipple while he tells you
all about his prince albert.
And if you find yourself alone at night. You can get drunk
with the Lesbians at the Lexington,
have your nails done at the Beauty Bar,
eat overpriced tapas at Cha Cha Cha,
pick up a good book or a drunk poet at a used bookstore,
shoot dope in the bathroom at the Uptown,
get harassed by drunk frat boys, gang bangers
and hipsters all within a one block radius,
pick up a one night stand at Zeitgeist,
and when the pain & the suffering hits
you can bury your dead at Driscolls,
and mourn on the streets,
no one will stop you.
You can go away, when you come back
the Mission wil be here waiting for you,
ready to give you something else,
without asking for anything back.
This place sells Berlinners—
French roast coffee, vanilla ice cream,
whipped cream and chocolate powder on top,
memories of my caffeine and marihuana days.
My shivering brain used to streak through this ceiling
to grab for truths that dangled like stoned angels
in Berkeley's smoky sky. Cody's Books
is boarded, closed down and done.
But I remember days when I skipped
along this same Telegraph Avenue
mind reeling with dreams of Kerouac,
Trotsky and Buddha. A fountain of spare change
I was, too shy to buy peyote
from the patched up guy on the corner.
This street was an altar then, and Whitman
might have sipped his latte three tables from me.
Shambala books with its green awning
praising the Universal Mind is gone,
just like Gramna Books where Trots,
Stalinists and mad anarchists
somehow found a quiet space together.
What was the name of that UFO café
where folks gathered to discuss group sex
and our saviors who were coming from the stars?
What happened to those unicyclists
who tossed each other flaming torches?
Where's the Berkeley Circus—acrobats,
knife jugglars, fire dancers who performed
for our pleasure and donations?
No blues musicians, hammer dulcimer players
or punk rockers grace the streets today.
Not a single Hare Krishna passes by.
We get purse salons, Mobile phone stores,
classy restaurants and bars. But Moe's Books remains,
along with me, my Berliner and the warm June wind.
It appears
the attorneys feel
it is very import
to know
what to do
when you're done.
They sat up an appointment,
called me in,
asked the questions—
it was a middle aged woman...
I told her
I don't care.
She insisted
that people need
to know
what my wishes are;
what to do with my remains,
how to dispose
of my assets.
I told her,
"When I'm done, I'm done&mdash
it's someone else's problem."
She insisted,
said I must have given it
some thought.
I said, "Maybe a little."
She said, "There you go,
what is it?"
I told her—
"Rather than using
embalming fluid,
I'd like them to load me up
with gasoline,
tell the guy
running the crematorium
to stand back
when he throws the match.
I want to go off
like a Roman Candle,
shoot flames,
pieces of flesh,
hair,
bone
and eyeball
200 feet in the air.
I want the morning headlines
to read,
His Cremation Didn't Go Well,
but we'll know the truth,
you and me."
She clicked her ball-point,
flipped the page on her yellow note-pad
and with a blank stare said,
"You gotta be kidding?"
I told her,
"Never with wishes."
They thought it best
to shorten the appointment.
