View from Sutro

"It is God’s love that speaks to me in the birds and streams but also behind the clamor of the city." Thomas Merton

Seen from golden heights

the tangled city

squares up.

Straight streets,

rigid veins

spurt quicksilver

past towers

of fog.

It throbs.

Hearts, minds,

sing passion

joy, lust,  

boredom.

A dying man

clinging to desperate sheets,

passing;

An infant crying

drawing raw air,

beginning.

It’s alive,

greater

than its sum.

See how it beats

in the cool Pacific sun?

Urban Square

Wayne Thiebaud, Urban Square, 1980, Oil on canvas, Oakland Museum

rise

canyons

steel over streets

vaulting rivers fly

to the hard, blue sky

sharper than

ink, than

bright city

lights.

(22 Oct. 2013)

City Nocturne

“Where there is no peace, there is no light.”  Thomas Merton. Honorable Reader: 
Reflections on My Work

I dwell in city nights
hear cars cruising
down streets
streaming confusion
whispering,
boulevards of light
stunted lanes,
high-
wire siren, stunned
shot-
finders, tense
dispatchers rolling
black and whites,
ambulance
coroner’s wagon

while laughing,
from theatre emerging,
from restaurant and bar
unaware, we swarm
through rivers of blood
to black cars, crush
of silent plush
power windows up
lock the doors
and slowly drive
through these
shimmering
terrible,
beautiful
streets.

(2 April 2012)

Above Berkeley (For Connie)

Past stone houses Along the dangerous road We raced, top down Past the homes of the rich Laughing We flew into the night To the top And when we stopped The March wind still filled my hair And lifted my breath High above the bright city (its streets were constellations  Carelessly glittering Diamonds Cast into black waters) But walking past dark bulldozers Beyond the battered, red, warning sign Our laughter suddenly fell Startled by the silver presence Above the trees. We climbed to the peak As a halo encircled the full moon Silenced at last We heard an almost-human cry. Nearly invisible, we saw them, The plaintive, grazing deer. Image: Deer in the Grass courtesy of Ron Jensen 4/28/2013

Towards 280 (after Wayne Thiebaud)

Vibrant canvas, undulant colors

thin lines of thick paint

streaking white fields

of bright California light.

The blue road plummets

into wider boulevards.

Down steep freeways

over shadowed s-curves

the black cars streak.

Past the pink condo

rising high along the blacktop,

its thrusting blue shadow slicing

the indurate road,

they drive down bright 280

past creamy waves of warehouse

through fields of pale gold,

where at last they converge

on the incipient, blue

bay. 

Author's Note: 

Painting: Wayne Thiebaud, Towards 280, 1999-2000,

acrylic on canvas, 54 x 60 inches.

Courtesy: LeBaron's Fine Art, Sacramento, CA