“I was never really a member of the Beat Generation.”
—L. Ferlinghetti, 1990
I was a vegetable,
and I was red,
and I was diced,
and I was in some famous salads.
I was loosely affiliated
with a lot of fruit,
I was canned, I was sweet,
but I was never really a beet.
It’s true I was an anchovy
once for Halloween.
Rootabaga Stories?
That doesn’t prove a thing.
This is the end of the line, this is me,
the last block puts the bitch
back into North Beach.
Lord Buckley doesn’t live here anymore.
Which doesn’t stop the shoulders of a saint,
the author of a traveling scroll,
from threading through the downfield
all alone now in a dream.
The young kids come around
armed with ancient envelopes,
waking up old ghosts on Russian Hill.
Question lists get baptized with good beer.
They sleep it off in live-work spaces
South of Market, where
misconceptions give breech birth
to cubicles.
The empirical evidence is in:
The sky is made of pesto
and the Aurora Borealis. . .
never mind.
You call this a revival?
I call it borscht.
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an adolescent fantasia
Three smart raps with a fat red, white and blue dildo and court is in session. The judge does not relax her grip: rulings may arise on short notice.
The prosecutor cracks his knuckles, a dreamy look in progress on his mug—he’s in love with his job, and has a cache of pills to prove it up, so as not to be caught half-mast should that sardonic sloe-eyed bailiff call a side bar over recess.
The defense lawyer sports a bow tie and a cowlick. His client is elsewhere (if it’s good enough for Michael Jackson and Courtney Love, it’s good enough for  ). The court’s reach and grasp are out of synch; growing pains.
When  was found guilty, also in absentia, over strenuous objections his expensive new best friend was appointed as his proxy, “for any and all purposes,” whereupon proceedings went to chambers. He made egress in a body bag, still technically alive—so Mr. Bow Tie is not exactly yawning, or looking at his watch.
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Radios beg only pennies a day Advances outnumber declines
Lo and behold straw turns to gold Incomplete proteins combine
*
At work, we are adequately staffed. For weeks on end we stay the course, tending to the flame of our purpose. Five o’clock comes, five o’clock goes, servers up, servers down, claws come out, asked and answered. Voices flying, some of them are mine. “Is that yellow thing the sun?” “I couldn’t pick my wife out of a line-up.”
Bring me your poor, your tired running gags. Children sprout up overnight, like little IPOs, like magic beans. Japanese for lunch, third time this week. Disenchantment breaks out the champagne. Mixed blessings in disguise are where you find them.
Did I mention we have three War Rooms? And that I’m a temp? Long-term, but still a temp, a flex-time temp. Months pass, they pass like so. . .
Four days more on this assignment. What comes next? Maybe nothing, maybe all the tea in China.
And I spin upon my Herman Miller chair!
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