Aus dem Keime

Imagine the doorbell rang, but every time—
if the doorbell rang so loud, if the ring had been so wired
that the clangor made you reel and cast away
visitor and open door. Nosotros, Los

Feliz, where the letter heads
both rosy and inviolate, lean and upright,
jogs the memory with stamp and pulp,
the two notes of the ring penciled underneath

the zip code. It runs like wax and plugs
the overweening tones. Still, why would you?
Why go two years and ask for quarter there
in the slightest, warmest pause between the notes?

Via Negativa

"O it's not a desert nor a web
Nor a tomb where I lay dead
Minor in a sound alone
Yes a clear commanding tone."
Bonnie Prince Billy, "A Minor Place"

"No it's not a lion's den,
but it's not a mother's love.
It's real."
Odawas, "Swan Song of the Humpback Angler"

Muni Pipe Dream

My parents have been in town, and we've been walking quite a bit (Nob Hill, Russian Hill, etc.) and getting around on streetcars as well.

It's amazing how a handful of lines, reserved right-of-ways, and so on would talk the Muni system from semi-useful to world class. Billions of dollars, sure, but exponentially better.

Most of this is in the pipeline, but not all of it.

1. Dedicated right-of-way for the lines there are already, including Market St. for the E. (Who drives on Market St. anyway?)

2. Run the J. above ground from Embarcadero to Balboa Bark. Decongest the Market St. Tunnel by limiting it to the K, L, M and N.

3. Eliminate the above-ground stretch of the N along Dolores Park.

3. Run the T past the Central Subway through North Beach and the Wharf.

4. Build the B-Geary from Powell, and a Van Ness line from the Wharf to Market (or Mission).

6. Run E-Embarcadero streetcars from Caltrain to the Presidio.

5. BRT along California 1, from the Golden Gate Bridge to Daly City (and connecting to the E, B, N, L, and Daly City BART)

Epyllion

Singe us again, us: we felt the flame
of underwater caves and fire in the first
decade of the third—a minor third,
or so it seemed at first, or nine years in,
or so long as the seventh sleeper lay
suspended on the Theban bedrock, two sheets
to the westron winding sheet: shanghaied
below the crust, the seven gates, Five Points,
the Singer Building and the Hudson Terminal.

The Flats

It was by Duboce that the bargain book
of odes first swept the English from the recto
side—et ingravatum est cor Pharaonis—
and then from the verso side to full wingspans
of white. There to the empty flat, where the phone
hums with some salute beside the grave
of the old man. What happened in Manila?

What did MacArthur say about returning?
That name swoops by the San Francisco train
already waiting on the opposite side
of the platform, already set for kabuki detachment
on the balcony, ready for an equal set
of absences: here and the Lake of the Woods,
here and those sad and funny lapels, and here
and trenches, holes in the ground like other trains
already waiting now in the outspread wings.

SMS

J.S.: I got the most absurd txt last night from this guy I went on a bad date with a month ago. He was friends with ____. At 3 in the morning.
C.S.: Only for that moment?
J.S. The text came at 3 in the morning. It said, "I miss never kissing you."
C.S. Ooops. That's amazing.
J.S. I know. I still don't understand it.
C.S. Is it true? Did you not kiss?
J.S. We did not. So does he mean, "I miss hanging out but not kissing" or "I regret not kissing you"? I needed to ask another linguist, you know?
C.S. It means he misses never kissing you....
J.S. I wrote back this morning, saying, "What?" Which is great, because the last thing I said to him on the date was "I'm doubly disappointed."
C.S. Now triply?
J.S. Exactly. Mostly in his ungrammatical usage. I feel like he was using "miss" in the sense of missing a train... No, that wouldn't work.
C.S. That's how I read it at first... like really bad grammar for "Whooops! I missed it!" But then I got the sentimental about infinite inexperience.....that was sweeter.
J.S. Except that we didn't ever kiss, so it's not a state he can miss, since he's still in it. And will be, until he dies.
C.S. Isn't that sweet.
J.S. I guess it's this structure: "I miss (you), never kissing you." Sort of like, "I put on tying my shoes."
C.S. I miss spending all those moments I spent with you while never once touching my lips to yours.
J.S. I just wish the date had gone well. It would have saved a month of madness. And now, one month later, he writes me a 3 AM zen koan.
C.S. What's a zen koan?

"The night is freezing fast,
To-morrow comes December;
And winterfalls of old
Are with me from the past;
And chiefly I remember
How Dick would hate the cold.

Fall, winter, fall; for he,
Prompt hand and headpiece clever,
Has woven a winter robe,
And made of earth and sea
His overcoat for ever,
And wears the turning globe."

-A.E. Housman