San Francisco Cafe

Café du Soleil is a perfect example of why San Francisco is the most European US city.  It’s bright and striped and classy.  You feel comfortable meeting for wine and cheese or working on your laptop. 

At times I’d rather say it all, or nothing.  At times I’m afraid, tired.  I tried reading, writing.  I tried dancing but my stomach turned to wine.  My tongue catty, I thirst without ceasing.  I couldn’t complain, I couldn’t go out but spent the Friday night at home alone, alone at home, listening to the echoes.  I balanced on a pin, lost my numbers.  I had a dry track record, was caught on bike in the rain in rush hour, failed again and again. I walked the jewled city in my car, lights and flight, the cafes were filled at night, the bridges appeared suddenly, the city shown below, the bay didn’t gleam like an abyss, at night the water goes and a canyon appears straight down and down into no molten core.  The shadows infinite, the fall forever. 

And there are songs I can’t stop, I can’t stop ‘two weeks’ for instance, or ‘the strangers’ from haunting me and playing at full volume from memory, just from that when I’m falling asleep.  I could plug my nose, plug the boat holes leaking, stop up the swamping ship, we tossed, we lost, we looked upon our legs in merriment at the apearence at new muscles, I sprinted today, thirty steps at a time up hill, on the trails of San Rafael with Klaus the dog, sprinted and did not tire and laughed, not at death, at life, with life,

cunning, spooky, daily, music that swallows you whole, hole, you get sad, like a possession, you get tired, like a trick, like a box you pick up and peer into, the sleeping spell inside, a miracle, a mouse, dressed in black, I saw my hands, your head, I saw a quiet wife, a death, a life, contained in cardboard walls and floor and ceiling flaps, I’d be crazy not to follow, foloow where you lead, your eyes, they tell me, this isn’t me, you know, those poets at their guitars out there for instance, those sizes

Tonight.  You know those words, and in the spring they fill up with meaning, tonight, tonight, yes, for tonight the trees bloom and bloom and make room, spread their leaves, paint your dreams, your nose, you know, sniffs all night, blue buds and white, and honey yellow sweet buds infuse your room, your underwater dreams, your underwear stained pollen from the inside out, what is music, how do we use it, or does it use us, or is life music?  how to describe the unnamed, unseen, the brief color taste, the long, the deep, I could shade you, we can shallow, wade, stand up to our waists in still water, the firey calm, the sudden magical moment, the long lasting, the line stretching, (what was that you tried to say), I miss Patrick, so.

Into the room, the loose, the beginning.

I fell amouse, amourous, afield, far like lichen, something alone, the close calm terror of nostalgia, the back roads country structures glimpsed through trees, the rain in wild wind through wood, through leaves, of, I need you father, dear sweet lord, this is around, this is here, this is a bygone era, those shadow echoes of yesterday, too much sunlight, too far back, we found hollow trunks, we whispered in the forest dark, we made toys, played tricks, we hid and sought, we ought to lie down in the leaves, look, some sky through branches, birdcall, sunlight pushing through day, what is this I feel, alive? 

we yoked alone, we dove the day, the age, our age, our separate ages, our age our age, our backs pressed together, You are doing this to Claire and me, you are making a common home (in the nest in the woods), I’ve known some country and for this I’m greatful, full and great,

longing, this is life,

holding water in the palms, this is this is this is leaves falling slipping through, this is leaves, this is lessons, this is knowledge, little boats, yes and this too, on lake surface, on sea surface, bay, and river surface, breaking face of it, that slippery, that funnel tunnel channel, that wandering canoe, that soon to go, no, lets time of slip, time of your life, if you cursive me I will, do you promise, a room with quilt door, a yellow and bright and multi squared bed, an overstuffed room full of sunlight, this was our home together, and you, girl, fill me more and more, march through my mind lazily, Spring Hill Park napping in breezes, those outside sleepers,

(she said leave it to me)

(everything will be alright)

airtight, luggage, an old shuttered chest, a bag, case, all thaaattt life lived, that’s the case, this is where we find ourselves, in confusion, in bafflement at the beauty, in the fireplace waiting for the rain sounds down the chimney, we are getting filthy, getting, like picking it up, like muffin pans full of warm,

do you know where you are, and what you’re doing?  San Francisco, Café du Soleil, writing on a Saturday night, crawling into music, catching crazy glances, these sweet faces, these happy loves, the humans congregate here, and we are leaves

Advertisement