to like it better from the hills behind it,
a place called the Travis Marina.
When the pictures develop, all you see is fog,
even in summer, which is the only time I make it out there now.
I’ve spent long enough elsewhere to know there are better places
than Sausalito and its concert benefits.
The Bay can be stuffy if you know the right people.
The ‘right people’ are everywhere like dollar bear traps.
Gene, who lived out in Hamilton, told stories about Tupac,
who raised hell with him, back when the Rafael bend
wasn’t all smoke shows and pseudo gang fights.
Tupac went to Tam, and you wonder how the preppy school
overlooking that same Travis Marina,
ever let blood drip on their alma mater.
Then Gene tells you about the six year old martyr
for the paper, and the privilege, and all the dots connect.
I, on the other side, looking at the Travis Marina
because it aids the mind, aids the stillness, aids the poetry.
The art school is less bloody
When death crawls in now, it is the suicide of gay men and women.
We cowards say nothing, but all the families left
out in Hamilton and their relatives, are saying,
fuck this!
Some moved to Oakland, and those who chose not to either
premeditate or sit in the thick of stink.
I moved from Florida, so what can I say, coming from one place
to another, drafted by the same despicable larp.
Do I say, sorry?
Even if I stayed witness to the city
the trademark bridge would be confused
with the mass produced postcards of everywhere.
I would not be concerned about the doubt
of jumping off that Golden Gate Bridge.
There is no longer a question which is worse,
it is both the silence and the view
while falling.
Living has become unlivable.
Either it is suffocating or it is suffocating.