Noe Triangle 1992

By Lisa Bernardi

In my dreams of this city,
I am always leaving.
The everyday of it
Is too much.

I loved it
At first.
The chaos
The clubs
The people
The vast alone
In a place crammed with bodies.
Wretched. Wonderous
A girl can get lost here.

Eating nachos with squeezy cheese
From the AM/PM off Castro
Walking to the clubs.
Leather daddies in black vests,
Boys on dog leashes.
Never knowing where
The night would take us.

Buying CD’s in the Virgin
Megastore on Market.
Shopping at Chanel,
Like I could afford anything
More than a lipstick.
Walking around Union Square
During Santa Con,
Embracing the craziness.

But now,
The sirens go on
All night
The flashing lights
Strobe my windows
And create patterns
Across my sheets
But I am not sleeping
Anyway.

But now,
People shouting
Beneath my window
Buying drugs
Or buying someone
Or just trying
To make a human connection.

But now,
The homeless man
Masturbating on
My car window
As I sat inside, waiting for a friend.
No one even noticed.

But now,
Watching someone steal
A wallet from a man
Passed out on the street.
His filthy bare feet
Twitching slightly
To prove he is
Still alive.

All this loneliness
And desperation
Has become
More than I can live with.
The everyday
Is too much.

In my dreams of this city,
I am always leaving.

A Love Poem to My Birthplace

By Celia Bosworth

When you are born in the Bay Area
San Fransico will always be "The City"
You will always be drawn to the Pacific Ocean
You will always smile at a glimse of the Golden Gate Bridge
You will always have a mystic relationship with Redwood Trees

When you are born in the Bay Area
Social Justice is part of your DNA
The diversity of humanity is part of your soul
Book stores are your refugee
When you decend into SFO your heart soars at seeing the bay, the many bridges across it, and the long shoreline

When you are born in the Bay Area
You are a citizen of the world
You have the skills to make your home anywhere but the Bay Area will always remain home within you

The City of Good Hands

By Jace Rowe

I’ll never get to love Salinas like Steinbeck did,

when it was a dusty old west town,

before the cartel moved in,

before we decided that our neighbors were the devil,

growing up from hell like weeds in need of killing.

But there are still dirt-creased hands,

there are still abuelas making tortillas at dawn,

wrapping tamales in their husks,

and their nietos in the little jackets,

they bought new for them this fall.

And sometimes I wave at the homeless man

who picks the cans out of the dumpster at work,

and he tells me to fuck off.

And sometimes I feel brave enough

to honk at the car driving like an asshole,

and I’m reminded by the pistol in the window

why we don’t do that here.

But then I’m taking the back way home

down Old Stage Road,

and I see the wind brushing the Gabilan’s hair, blade by blade in a wave.

And I see the setting sun paint dusk on the valley,

blues and purples against the golden hills.

And how can you hold a grudge

in a place like this?

I’m proud that you can read our name

in every produce aisle of the country.

And I’m proud that we finally dropped out of the top ten most murderous cities in the country.

It seems like a small ask,

but we have come, and gone, so far,

being here at all is a miracle.

In Salinas, the sun still rises over the hunched backs in the fields,

In Salinas, the sun still sets over cookouts in backyards

that will go long into the morning.

We are still an old west town,

with our gunslingers and outlaws.

And we are still worthy of the loving way John Steinbeck wrote of us.

We are a city of good hands,

dirtied by blood and earth.

Here Goes

By Lyra Bateman

In memory of Laura Ann Carleton

I didn’t know

I needed the freedom to see it in this California,

Where City Hall and the Sheriff’s Office fly the pride flag

The Progress pride flag

In June

I didn’t know if I was queer if it was nobody’s business,

or if I even counted while I hid.

I grew up either praying the Devil’s temptations away

to a fundamentalist Christian god

or singing the national anthem of a country

where homosexuality was a criminal offense. But here

I could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the birthplace of Gilbert’s flag! I could visit girlbar in West Hollywood! I could go to Dinah Shore Weekend in Palm Springs! I could go to San Francisco Pride! LA Pride! WeHo Pride! SacPride! Catalina Pride! San Diego Pride! Fresno Pride! Central Coast Pride! Sonoma Pride! I could breathe and step out in full color and be

shot for the flag in my shop window

In Cedar Glen.

If I didn’t know that

even in our California

Coming out could end in death

Maybe I would.

Untitled

By Maram Haddad (High School Junior)

Pacific Grove, California

is a bipolar weather map,

forty-five minutes away from

the irrigated desert of Salinas.

During rainy weather, we search for treasure troves

on many freeways,

to see the graffiti on tunnel walls—

we find them on abandoned trains (all the way to King City).

We stick our heads out of the

car window,

the windy breeze hollowing our breaths as

we screeeeeeeam to loud music

staticky on the radio.

We catch droplets in our mouths—

savor the taste of the Pacific rain

before we leave it.

(or, before it leaves us

so suddenly, sometimes, I fear.)

In the summer heat,

we step on crucifying

minerals when we

walk through

sandy beaches that exfoliate our c r a k y feet.

But then—at night—the ocean crashes us to sleep,

soft, tender waves, flow through our ears

skin— gathering the salt from the water

putting out the (bon)-fire

keeping the wood awake.

Living here is like

surviving heavy rain and power

outages during school

and then searching for shade—

surviving heat waves the very next day.

I wouldn’t have it

any

other

way.

PÁJARO, RAILROAD AVENUE

By William Greenwood

It’s the middle of the night, too early
for this not quite town of a few thousand
farmworkers to go to work,
but too late for the Jesus Saves
next door to reach the winos
on the prowl for unlocked doors.

Dead center of the summer,
I half-insomniac get out of bed,
dress and head into exhausted air
from across Railroad Avenue.

In the floodlit switching yard
hydraulics squeeze, the pressure
blows and a flexing diesel
growls to overcome inertia,

budging to a slow roll,
as the iron beast picks up,
picks up speed until that brute
…
explodes
against a row of boxcars
coupling the next one
to the next one/ next one/ next one/
so on down the line.

When they’ve finally had enough,
the chain gang roars for one last time
past orphaned flat cars,
empty tankers, open refers―

The Western Way, The Action Road,
The Rio Grande, BlueStreak
WayoftheZephyrs, SooLine
and the Erie Lackawanna
sidewind off into the dark.

Panpoem: Golden State

By Kent Leatham

California,
yr hills like a blonde man’s ass
yr shores of births and afterbirths
yr granite clefts and cleavages
yr tucked rivers
yr bound lakes
yr madrones on E
yr sequoias on T
yr merkin moss and bearded kelp
yr contact-high sun
yr black-leather nights
yr fogs of longing dripping down my thighs
yr implants, empaths, and immigrants, their heft
yr wrinkled salt-and-pepper chilis
yr runway runaways
yr beached boys babylon
yr loud milk and proud honey
yr soft heart in a choked thistle
yr labial poppies furled, unfurled
yr stoned fruits
yr swollen nuts
yr manos y hermanos
yr missionary’s positions
yr bears and otters
yr bare flag
yr tapped veins
yr tunneled tracks
yr ash eyeliner
yr pixelated crypto tit
yr celluloid and cellulite
yr signed wood
yr golden gape
yr soft brick
yr ticky tack
yr tease
yr toys
yr taunt
yr taint
yr fault no fault
yr shudder
yr thrust
o
here,
California,
we come