Don’t be stupid: all this perfume
and no soap or razors, no Ouzo
or tabouli or bruised Greek women,
and worse, no future, like zeppelins,
gray antique phalluses, muted engines
disturbing the hideaway caves
of the cocky starling, he who would laugh
as I fell down Lombard Street,
San Fran’s fog stuck
in my black and broken mouth:
I am no man. Leavenworth Street
sends no signals, receives no callers,
but Nob Hill takes us,
minor players, by surprise
as biker bars never close
and third-party checks
are routinely accepted by strippers.
Wait: the feast has been canceled
and the clouds shift and dissolve
under the moon’s charred static
as the promised pain never comes.
We starve our girlfriends, we turn
tourists into permanent guests.
With Chinatown’s finest
filming our cathartic chant--
we want Alcatraz!--we practice
bogus hocus pocus and dress like Texans.
We must be cautious: our desires
and evidence are dwindling. Nightly
we crash cars into the Pacific,
right hands gripping genitalia, only
to bite off our wagging tongues,
and gods willing, have opera singers
sew them back on in the morning.
Here, there’s no law against it.
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