Dolores Heights sky
Matted wool rug
over
fir
floor other apartments
under us
no chairs
needed for
carnatic
singing
no tanpura either just a
guitar
plucked
by the impossible
leader her fresh-cheeked
voice
I was in a fog all weekend
floating bus
to bus not
knowing the routes the swells and relaxations of the land
almost always in the heights
my
brother sherpaing me through
his San Francisco
up once the daybreak
clouds had vacated the neighborhood
to this apartment overlooking Dolores Park
a guitar shared with hobo homo naifs plucked from life
ashramming with the carnatic ascensions
also mama’s
little baby loves shortnin bread
this was the City of the early
1970s
people sauntered the byways
in
modest
clothes
of cotton and nylon
it was before Manhattanization
sidewalk conversations had four
dimensions
possibly
more
that afternoon
we sang along
until
I saw
the sky dome through the ashram
ceiling
or was it
just from the window to Dolores Park
This poem was published in the Spring 2020 issue of the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, page 410.
Andy Oram
October 27, 2019
More poems