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August 26, 2012
Walking in - 8/21/12
I meet my neighbor Sebastian pulling his laundry through the fog
The only man I ever met that's "from Amsterdam"
No one escapes from that city
I turn to trudge up the stairs to Coit Tower in the cool morning mist
But I turn back to find where the man had a grand mal seizure
and ran his Lincoln into a bar
Magnolias and Fuchsias and skateboarders
North beach citizens peer out into the cold from warm bakery havens
Cops double-park and rush into Trieste for a coffee
The strip clubs get fresh whitewash by Chinese man on a ladder
Pigeons peck at puddles of rubbish on street sides
2 tourists pose for awkward Transamerica shots in cold mayonnaise streets
And suddenly it dawns on me
Tourist season is over!
We have the city to ourselves!
In tall boots, a girl stomps by
I try to match her with the man beside her but they don't fit
any woman with boots like that must surely be alone
The must sell 'fuck me' boots like that in warm clothing stores to the truly desperate
At 550 Montgomery street, a group of aged crumbling tourists paddles by with ear conchs
Retired tourists on the lam
Wet streets and freshly washed sidewalks
Smoking lepers study granite tombs of Periwinkles
Doormen huddle inside today, too cold to brave the foggy mist
Downtown is all coffee shops and scooters and red lights and pink marble columns accidentally polished
by a million curious pedestrians
Lollipop bouquets and shivering worker bees wishing for one last week on a favored beach they can't afford
On Market Street, the homeless dig through refuse bins and chew on unknown treasures
A street vendor from Peru sets up for the day a table of virulently colored scarves and jewelry
He is from Ecuador, not Peru
I was close
Bright street cars row through the fog, loudly clanging bells,
Not unlike the foghorn symphony
Gone for 20 days and precious little has changed
SF looks like a modern day Pompei
Streets all torn up and the subway escalators escalators still in ruins
I'm now aware that what I thought were Impatiens are actually Periwinkles,
And most of the tourists are gone,
But aside from that, precious little has changed.
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 26, 2012 at 6:11 PM
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