5 San Francisco Poems (sf poem 1)

All’s Well

Abrupt Pacific gust – quick thrust –
caresses, cuts – blooms and chills:
retracts: exacts the sun’s full sudden
blazing desert measure: random
thrills and pricks of pleasure aren’t
random anymore but a collective gift
that rides and ought to ride in tandem

with a life: that it should be the run
of things to lift and soar and coalesce
into a happiness becomes the law.
You wonder what the alterations
in the soul will be from this rash feeding
of its deepest maw: to stand here
waiting for a ferry to embark for

Sausalito: flashpoint – ice! flame! – air –
and blue – and light – bright jazz
somewhere behind you, near, on some
reflexively rejoicing pier: as you inspect,
across the bay, the way the scrabbled
green, harsh gray and arid brown
of the eruptive land-mass you’ll approach

has broached, and found – embraced
by soft alluring San Francisco haze –
the shades of terra cotta, jade and apricot
and cream: speckled with the bravery
and dream of little houses: faint pastel.
All should always be – and (who
knows?) maybe, deeply, is – this “well.”

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