WHERE THE PAST COMES TO BE KISSED
THE LONG VIEW
Two lovers sit atop
Dolores Park: they stop
their argument to see
a church, a bridge, a sea.
They play a little game:
each man proceeds to name
his list of lovers, dead.
There’s no one left unsaid.
Anxious pigeons wait
for crumbs to fall. It’s late.
The weather starts to shift:
all fog, all love, will lift.
Randall Mann
Randall Mann, “The Long View” from Breakfast with Thom Gunn. Copyright © 2009 by The University of Chicago Press. Reprinted with the permission of The University of Chicago Press and the author.
HOW TO MAKE A TALISMAN
BAKER BEACH
Close your eyes on that startled
vision: fishing line strung taut
by the waves’ tall pressure: cold sugar
of a fish’s mouth clamping the bait’s steel
surprise. Hold fast against the tide, its spray
finer than pleasure against your sun-
ruddy face. Understand there’s nowhere
to go. I mean you have nowhere
you must go. What we trust is the sound
of the sea, its chill shock, our faith
in its change. Rolling together and under
and up and apart and on to the next
body. This is the pacific.
Melissa Stein
Melissa Stein, “Baker Beach.” Reprinted with the permission of the author. All rights reserved.
TIMES LIKE THESE
THE ANTIDOTE TO FASCISM IS POETRY
dear hidden gems
riding on the bus
your green glow
has something to say
to the artificial mind
alive in those buildings
where time’s spiders
were invented to eat
the continual terrible
boredom we emanate
looking down at our phones
instead of a tree
under that cloud
that looks like a door
Matthew Zapruder
Matthew Zapruder, “The Antidote to Fascism is Poetry.” Reprinted with the permission of the author. All rights reserved.
hello, world
TRAIN THROUGH COLMA
But will anyone teach
the new intelligence to miss
the apricot trees
that bloomed each spring
along these tracks?
Or the way afternoons
blazed with creosote
& ponderosa?
Spring evenings flare
with orange pixels
in the bay-scented valley—
where in the algorithm
will they account for
the rippling ponies
that roamed outside Fremont?
When the robots have souls,
will they feel longing?
When they feel longing,
will they write poems?
Tess Taylor
THE MIRACLE OF ORDER
LISTENING TO THE CARYATIDS ON THE PALACE OF FINE ARTS
The curve of roof echoes the roll of golden
coast hills solidified in travertine
marble. In front, the reflecting pool’s eye,
where the dome, the city’s past, floats is split
by swans. Once a city built from redwood
plank and gold dust, until earth shook it down
to mud and ash. In 1915, twelve
plaster palaces bloomed from the ruined
Marina. For nine months, San Francisco
grew fat again with visitors and fame.
The exhibition ends. Palaces razed.
Only this mute Roman structure remains
crowned in weeping stone maidens who,
whisper back to us in sea wind, bird song.
Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Iris Jamahl Dunkle, “Listening to the Caryatids on the Palace of Fine Arts.” Reprinted with the permission of the author. All rights reserved.
Each artist selected for SF Beautiful Muni 2020 was asked to create three pieces based on their own hidden gems of San Francisco.
OCEAN BEACH, GOLDEN HOUR
EVENSONG
INDECISION AND COGNAC