Jack Miller "Our San Francisco" at "Poets 11" 2016
Channel: San Francisco Public Library
Date: 2016-10-05

In San Francisco our wide air comes fresh
From the laundry, Pacific scented and
Folded with a watery attitude
Of entitlement, of course, as we breeze
In loose-fitting clothes into homes that double
As swinging beach party movie sets, their
Sandy magic carpets and New World art
Taking us somewhere silly, and anyone’s
Teeth would glint sipping euphoria from
Crummy plastic or crystal glasses. Yeah.
Ask any American, they’re jealous
And also sure we’re nuts. We busk
In the sun too easily, swaddle billionaires
In T-shirts, store madmen on the sidewalk,
Pray to personal trainers to use Life
Coaches to their fullest, make love in spirit
Of fusion cuisine, revere the revering
Of old cars, court new laws and disparage
Those in force, sleep well and dream of the new
Surging towards us like earthquakes —
Several of tl1ose a week, and our establisl1ed
Prophets of doom, always so specific,
Promise the big one will bust up the mother
Of all beach parties; slip San Francisco
Into something more geologic:
A boiling surf. What’s the diff ? tweet the birds
That hatched in the tropics, We like the snow!
Sometimes the weather lurches towards L-A,
Seeking, like you, to dance with drunk celebs,
Then goes windmilling, kicking up the hills
And into the Central Valley, where scurf
Whips westward to San Francisco mixed
With incorporate heat of burning redwood
Forests. Inhale: Eau de Sap, Charcoal Brut.
Stick out your palm, like for money. White ash
Speckles your lifeline, your duds, your daydreams.
Time to move here. You won’t be unwelcome —
That’s our story, too. The neighbors you meet
Will clue you in while your absent neighbors,
The descendants of gold rush robber barons
And pickax magnates, are with the parrots
Of Telegraph Hill in restless, social
Transiting. Hell, they’re probably visiting
Our old town, New York City, where salt water
Is manmade in slush-clotted streets and leaks
By storm sewer to the sullied harbor and
Crusted shores of that turned-in-on-itself
City, where acolytes of avarice
Smile punji stick smiles and guard their backs
While digging tiger pits for friends who need
To hand over gold they took from Midas —
Let them keep their suits and rat maze co-ops.
Remember too, the dogged New York daughters
Born to hammer-craze glass ceilings, egged on
By parents otherwise enfeebled by
Co-op boards, made to do tricks by Admissions
Lackeys of “good’’ schools. Today’s New York kids
Vamp success and pose as not-stupefied
By duties to their future selves, probably
Fear most to be known as the one who failed,
Fell westward
To San Francisco where kids
Binge on memes and become rich with roommates,
Crowd live-work bunkers or old Victorian
Whorehouses partitioned by pimps of real
Estate and drywall. No privacy needed
For coffee or giving birth to a business.
You’ll feel private in a used car. We thrum
Like the cartoon Jetson’s from A to B,
Or climb an apathetic Muni bus
To jounce among all kinds the sunny streets’
Social service bars, techie massage shops,
Tie-dye eateries, Dope-A-Terias,
Bad pizza parlors, endangered species
Tofu haunts, flowing togs lady boutiques —
Our hurly-burly souls reinvented
(...continued in the printed book version of "Poets 11" 2016.)