Apparently, too much of San Francisco was not there in the first place

This dream requires more condemned Africans
Or
State violence rises down
Or
Still life is just getting warmed up
Or
army life is looking for a new church and ignored all other suggestions
or
folk tale writers have not made up their minds as to who is going to be their friends

“this is the worst downtown yet. And I’ve borrowed a cigarette everywhere
…I’ve taken many walks to the back of buses… that led on out the back of a storyteller’s prison sentence… then on out the back of slave scars.”

“this is my comeback face. Though I know you can’t tell…”

“I left my watch on the public bathroom sink and took the toilet with me. I threw it at the first bus I saw eating single mothers half alive. It flew through the line number… then on out the front of the white house”

hopefully you find comfort downtown. But if not, we’ve brought you enough cigarette filters to make a decent winter coat

a special species of handshake
let’s all know who’s king and what the lifespan is of uniform cloth

this coffin needs to quit acting like those are birds singing
those rusty nails have no wings
and have no voice other than a white world dying
there are indeed book pages in the gas pump
catchy isn’t it?
the way three nooses is the rule
the way potato sack masks go well with radio codes

Or the way condemned Africans fought their way back to the ocean only to find waves made of
burned up 1920’s piano parts
European backdoor deals

and red flowers for widows who spend all day in the
sun mumbling at San Francisco

“what’s the color of a doctor visit?”

Book titles in the street like:

*Hero, You’d Make A Better Zero*

*Fur Coat Lady, The President Is Dead*

*Pay Me Back In Children*

*They Hung Up Their Bodies In Their Own Museums*

-and other book titles pulled out of a drum solo

RUN HERE, HERO!
-lied the hiding place

all the bullets in ten precincts know where to go
no heaven (nor any other good ideas) are in the sky
politics means: people did it and people do it.
understand that when in San Francisco
and other places that were never really there

bet this ocean thinks it’s an ocean.
but it’s not.
it’s seventh and mission.

“All know who is king. King of thin things. Like america. I’m proud to deserve to die… I will eat my dinner extra slow tonight in this
police state candy dispenser that
you all call a neighborhood…”

no set of manners
goes unpunished
never mind about
a murderer’s insomnia
or the tea kettle preparing everyone for police sirens