the Golden Gate Bridge

but
her breasts keep getting in the way

so i couldn't sleep worth a damn
and the music was too loud
even if it was Kashmir
each heavy note came tumbling bouncing off the entrance door
i saw the stenciled sign splashed in hurried paint i hurried in
drizzled colors piled onto a dirty glass canvas announcing
Harmony Bar & Restaurant but i wasn't buying it
none of it none at all

her white shirt remained unbuttoned
while i fumbled 
i dropped the ball but had a ball played the game
went into extra innings 
she felt cold hot luke warm hot again
her nipples got the beat
each one
inclined swayed winked and nodded as i smoked
waiting on my park bench wearing a French beret
met a photographer who soon became a painter
read the newspaper headlines about the disturbance
waited until she touched me touched herself
i became erect & stayed that way

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
had a stiff one had a drink had a dream
i remembered Joseph Alioto and the bomb
his prostate cancer a bitch a hole in the invincibility wall
the streets of San Francisco pulsing up and down
round and round the Transamerica pyramid wild-eyed
his grave and everywhere parades of kids and more shadows
looking for the mafia but finding hills and bags of pills
and the Pacific Ocean and suicides
the Golden Gate Bridge the perfect foil
where inspired hippies danced by the incoming tide
outgoing too and in tune with their war
their camouflaged faces and Indochinese histories
black cats and panthers sitting on ice listening sweating the draft
their inner city jazz coming undercover coming underground
to Dizzy and Miles getting a fix on things some very good things
with sharp wit and sharper needles all at the appropriate time no less

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
living in my crummy flat by the fire department
on Haight-Ashbury with a famous singer
i can't recall his name his face just doesn't appear to me anymore
he played the drums in a white band not well but
only for a short while before dropping his sticks 
into the depths into the drug culture into the abyss
ringing my bell at all hours on each every almost any floor
at the window
by the stairs
on the road
tugging at my brains spilling my guts onto the cop's desk by his answering machine
questioning me and digging for deeper mysteries that no man should ever want to know
most any time the elevators to the 13th floor sit waiting for the middle finger
and i started to write in a cold sweat typing a combination of words
emphasizing color, light, and the need for a change of pace a change of direction
i felt i needed a job needed a push a muse a mother a mouth a moment of genuine solitude
but no flawed insight please no three piece suit please no college campus guidebook
in plain view on a polished dining room table, no stained glass front door, no father knows best
no the prevailing mood wasn't enough no crowd control no ten commandments
no zeitgeist no leitmotif no full monty to unwrap the final vision to explain everything
in one big yellow star-bursting fireworks explosion so we can all just go to hell! 
& so it goes for general motors general electric and the general population
all the crazy politicians jerking off in the planetary house of representatives
doing to us what they're doing to each other over the air waves and over cocktails
and over there and here in their hands a new generation looking for a masterpiece.

but i know where Jefferson once whispered to his black mistress, so maybe that's enough.

but

her breasts keep getting in the way