As the glutton strands peel away from the roof of my small mouth, I'm taken back to my childhood days of a past life spent idling in Odessa.  During summer, mother would gather many a townsmen, just before the sunset, attracted by the scent of the bakery and fueled by the desire to satiate their dry vodka coated throats.  Now, as the sugary fountain drink washes down this delicious chewy texture, the cabbage and potato has been replaced with tomato and mozzarella, but the cold stare of the fellow patrons remain.  The cold connective stare which we share of hopeless futility.  I love you my brothers; of this life and the last.

I am going to bed.
   Nothing could be more anticipated than my bed...
     the soft, fleece, grey blanket has it's say
     the yellow pillow of horizontal texture has it's say
     the soft thoughts of first. second kisses have there say
 I just want to stay awake...
to have that anticipation of the already present-
on rewind in the hours
minutes,
seconds,
glimpses of the day become dreams.

These past few days have been cold and windy. But at the same time, warm and pleasant. The wind does stop and it really is not cold at all. But one misses what summer feels like, misses what snow looks like. Does this not describe the endlessly describable San Francisco climate? How bothersome and redundant yet always worthy of comment. One more: the way the fog rolls in plumes in summer. The terror to me of the Sunset. The whole inescapable nature of this tiny city. And yet we do escape it. And we must go beyond it. The whole of it and all its neighborhoods must be forgotten one day. The good people that call here home might never leave. It is not my home and never has been. And this is a kind of sin. But like all sins one can forgive and forget. And always the reminder of all the happy laughter and cheerful hellos and friends and relationships that fill the days and the streets...

In writing here I am taking a step away from the artistic and a step towards the frank and natural tone. But does not art touch and enliven and make bearable everything?

So I tell you what I see.  A dolphin and a pelican. Dogs all over the place. Big, very big black birds with ugly shrills sitting below heavy overlapping phone wires. Some mysterious box on a pole that hums, and emits radiation. Babies in baby carriages every morning. Babies in baby carriages that smile and smile again, absolutely smile at me because I smile at them. The sound of the electronically powered bus accelerating and decelerating. The way the mail box door squeaks. The way the sun shines off the mailbox when I grab its hefty metal handle and drop my nurtured thoughts down its fat wide throat. How the moon looks without mercy amongst the cold air up there in space at us down here. How the same homeless sit in stuffy air in libraries crowded after schools let out. How even with the windows open the place is crowded and choked. And palm trees go unnoticed, swaying in different spots amongst the high breezes.

One remarkable and telling observation is this. The way different neighborhoods allow different neighborhood old men to congregate in different neighborhood cafes. And how the men from different neighborhoods in these different places seem different in an odd and unfamiliar way: the same way kids from different schools from different neighborhoods appeared odd and unfamiliar to me when I was a kid and encountered them.

I wonder where that big black bird that I saw standing in the blinding sunlight under the heavy mess of hanging black power lines is roosted away right now in the night. So big, so large, where does a bird like that sleep?

 Remember Mucha.