Stanzaic Stylings

  AS A BEACH BOY   The tern floated atop the waves like a blossom.   The wily pelican trailed the fishing boats.   I ran back and forth along the pier.   I never did hold a moment too long.   Until my hands reached out to catch a flying dolphin.   A ride on its back was all I would sit still for.       THE SEA, THE SHORE   I’m captive – treating the blustery grasses, the trembling brush, to my circumspection. I yield, succumb to the coastline, relive those old, never-to-be-forgotten childhood moments on the beach. Wind off the seas, I collect its tang in my nostrils, like information from the deep, translated by the adolescent boy who once combed the shore for sea dollars, who strode atop the dunes like riding a humpbacked camel. On blue mornings such as this, I’d venture out as far as the undertow, feel its pull on my toes then step back. Back into now, when I’m so much older, less accepting and more conscious of being alive. Meanw...

  I AM SAN FRANCISCO I have witnessed the waterfront decay the ships disappear the piers given over to tourists and sunbathing sea lions gone the Haight Theater in the old Haight Ashbury  where as a kid I paid a dime to see two movies a serial and a newsreel gone the old Embassy Theater on Market Street where they spun the Wheel of Fortune playing Ten-O-Win with a busty female usherette  shouting “In the Balcony, 1-2-3-4 Silver Dollars” her breasts bouncing in unison with each coin  that hit the tray the old Fox and Paramount Theaters now ghostly memories the old Market Street porno house boarded down gone McFarland’s Fudge Shop and Merrill’s Drug Store gone the old Hoffbrau house on Market Street Breen’s on Third Street with the worlds best Martini gone I Magnum’s Department Store and the old City of Paris where as a child I thrilled at the sight of the giant Christmas tree and who can forget The Emporium its indoor ice-skating rink and a Santa Claus workshop the ro...