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By Amaya Tawasha Diwan (High School Freshman)

My San Francisco knows no joy
Whispering, melancholy fog evokes elusive tears from struggling eyes
The harsh kiss of the wind roughly entangles its fingers in unsuspecting hair
Damp rubber soles slap cracked pavement in the muddy haze of fluorescent light
While weeping homeless people clutch trash bags as police herd them towards elsewhere
Music pulses through the isolating headphones crammed in ears meant to breathe
My San Francisco knows no seasons
An icy March precedes April’s gentle tears
The hot October air compresses lungs like a firm embrace from a distant family member
“I haven’t seen you since you were five! You’ve grown so much!”
My San Francisco knows no age
Old women pushed down stairs on buses
Homeless children huddled outside of a Safeway in the dark
Their rounded, aching eyes sweep passing grocery bags while faceless strangers deny them dimes
My San Francisco knows no silence
A raging night club across the street thunders with EDM and sways with rhythmless bodies
Slurred voices outside the window wail “I love you” and puke on trees dogs are yanked from the next morning
The clatter of litter and needles fumbled by drug addicts in the playground
Returned to the past to search for an answer to their current existence
Finding nothing but the mere quarrels of children over technicalities of hide-and-seek
Suspicious flocks of parents shepherding their children to the car
My San Francisco has no heart
Easily found ten year olds clutch vapes in graffitied stalls puffing away on drugs passed down from wanna-be teenage gangsters
Black and brown skin so colored by prejudice the ink is gone
Heavy hips hold the burden of catcalls and hypersexualization
In a society that prizes vulgarity
My San Francisco is filled with lost things
Spools of silver thread
Loved, decrepit childhood momentums
Seventy five year old tarnished keys
Broken souls who ride the M train at one in the morning
“Castro Station.”
“Forest Hill Station.”
On
And on
And on.

Monterey

By Christine Arturo (College)

Our walk begins as

a blanket of fog slowly

lifts and paints a pale blue

gouache rinsing the day.

On the horizon a pewter

sky softens while silver

lines roll each wave to shore.

Pine trees drenched in dew

perfume the air. Beneath

our feet a bed of needles

crackle as the still air

belies the waves pounding

below. Wave upon wave,

each relenting its white

foam draping the rocks, its

lace unfolded. Faded hills

in the distance cast

the shoreline into relief

as cypress trees sketch

their branches onto air.

Undercurrents rise in

green tourmaline each

lapidary wave breaking

through the sapphire sea.

Beyond tidepools of star-

fish mussels and sea

anemones seagulls glide

and slip between waves

cresting, the daylight

waning. Cormorants perch

on haystack rocks among

this jewel box of sea and land

its light-rippled sky of coral

and rose blooming deep

into carnelian. It’s the end

of our path. Beyond this edge

of earth the sun wedges

into a blood red sea.

SF Blues

By Janet Archibald

i left my heart

in the old blue collar part

of San Francisco

the rust of gritty warehouses

glistened in the ocean bright air

my neighbors, Italians, Maltese

Portuguese, Sicilians

a League of Nations of lunch pails and overalls

summoned to sermons every Sunday

by the bells of St. Elizabeth’s

elderly ex pats in baggy suits

pontificated on the corner

by Armanino’s deli

occasionally waving fedoras

for emphasis

backyard accordion, opera arias

competed with mariachi, garage bands

a lone Greek clarinet

wailed from an open window

ramshackle hot houses

marched up dusty dirt blocks

carnations and roses

destined for downtown flower stands

struggled to escape the broken panes

streets now neatly paved

one lone hot house remains

flanked by row upon row

of million dollar homes

finely curated shops

third wave coffee, private schools

newly minted millionaires

board the private daily shuttles

to Silicon Valley

return late at night

no time for philosophers or musicians

no place for lunch pails or overalls.

To California, in Gratitude

By Robert Lavett Smith

Now, nearly forty years in San Francisco,

I’ve grown accustomed to the lifting mist—

A muted, almost supernatural glow

That ripens into gold from amethyst.

I love the ravens in the Chinese elms

Scratching their evil edicts on the sky,

Ascetic sentries overseeing the realm

Of things that leave the greenery to fly.

And, living within earshot of the sea,

I bless its gentle murmur in the wind;

The Golden State has unreservedly

Absolved my wanderlust and let me in.

While this is not the place where I was raised,

It *is* the place I choose to end my days.

The Mission District is Wild Today

By Angie Minkin

When we moved to San Francisco, we lived

near projects a block away from Mission Street.

A dream of a city.

A time when we could arrive with $500,

no job. Survival, cheap rent,

and I, wildly alive, exploring the streets

in Frye boots and blue flannel shirt.

Now I slide by, unseen,

slip into Kilowatt, the corner dive bar,

where day drinkers tilt pinging pinballs.

Smooth-skinned girls in torn jeans stare

through me. Too busy with laptops and lattes.

And isn’t this street wild every day?

Chock-a-block with chain-bolted tenements,

million-dollar condos, Tesla-filled garages.

Detritus of sprawling tent cities —

chopped bike parts, live chickens, potted geraniums.

A gestalt of Jesus freaks and drug dealers,

Narcan spray and carne asada burritos,

hard by the bodega where Philz Coffee began,

where Phil and my husband, Palestinian and Jew

shared joints, spun tall tales of basketball prowess.

Impossible parking. Parklets overflowing with pretties.

Cumbia and reggae riffs blasting from gold-trimmed,

rumbling low-riders. Pounding congas. Skinny men

in feathers and leather. A woman in glitter

and army boots, cradles her rottweiler pup,

scrambles for bruised fruit to feed the hungry.

I hand money to the man selling the Street Sheet.

Wish it were enough for him to sleep safe tonight.

Hope the kids streaming from rooftop bars

won’t trip over his body curled up in a cardboard box,

as they post photos of curated cocktails to Instagram.

Aren’t we all struggling to be seen and heard,

wildflowers cracking through sidewalks?

San Francisco SPCA, or Hen Hao Xiao Mao

By Jillisa Bronfman

Like a fire alarm

And a crinkle of sticky red paper

She leans

She gleans the tiniest crumb

The smell of egg whites sticking to the pan

The tinkling bells of the wind chimes attached to the front door

Company

Is coming

It’s time to look at real estate listings

Under the bed

Friday Night in the Mission, San Francisco

By Jonah Rasin (College)

Friday night in the Mission,
Mahjong tiles in Mandarin,
Take-out pad Thai restaurant
chopsticks,
twenty-something Chinese friends
ask about my past;
I tell them “I was a Maoist,”
and they don’t flinch.
Blue-black sky
above the Roxy where I watched
movies on the big screen from
inside the projection booth,
the price of gas higher than ever
I notice
back seat of Uber on Market,
neon signs flashing,
mucho traffic on one way
street climbing San Francisco
hill, then down to the ocean,
Sated and sleepy.
What cultural revolutions
I wonder will tomorrow bring?

San Francisco Crazy

By Abby Caplin 

The city is screaming
out of its mind these days,
neighborhoods awakened at night
by sideshow tires spinning on themselves,
rubber smoke rising over homes
like explosions, teens cheering and shooting
at stars. In the morning, pitch-black
latex obliterates pavement markings.

The city endures thefts and break-ins—
catalytic converters and bicycles
gone in a minute, neighbors commiserating online.

"Woman checking out
my front door at 10 p.m." "The Grinch stole
our inflatable Olaf last night." "If anyone is missing
their silver hybrid bike with a blue trailer, I saw one
being wheeled eastbound down Oak Street."

To find some solace, I head south
to Pacifica, where the ocean bunches along
the horizon like a muscle. Waves rise
and crest, just before heaving forward
to pummel the seawall. I follow the breakers
all afternoon, spellbound by the end
of each cycle, where they quietly
fade under the billowy cloak
of stars and spume.

I Love the Drought

By Corey Weinstein

Dedicated to Tom Quinn

Oh joy, I love the drought,

The aquifer is drained. Hurrah!

Sweet million year old water

gone lowland valley’s collapse,

The great inland sea finally no more.

Corcoran Prison sinks, oh joy!

Buried is the beast I hate,

Solid foundations shake and break,

Walls tilt, doors ill-fit,

No steel can clang. Hurrah.

Last night I had a vision,

Awake, not a dream,

Corcoran Prison’s slow descent,

Goodbye blood soaked cement,

Gladiator fight arenas wiped out,

Bullet pocked concrete no more,

Oh joy, I love the drought.

Assault rifles blazed, chamber of death,

Not one staff, not one, held accountable, ever.

The five murdered, thousands injured,

H & K 9mm a lethal spear for:

William Martinez

William Randall

Andres Romero

Henry Noriega

Preston Tate

Oh joy, I love the drought,

They’re going down, these prisons,

Down into the ground,

Buried by the weight of the trouble they reek.

Dorris, California

By Sharon Pretti

I’ve forgotten how to pray,

how to peel back layers of sky to reveal that one

benevolent face—

something this town could use,

especially today, a Sunday morning

in the rib of winter.

The threadbare backyards,

wood smoke stalled over rooftops.

Dorris could use an act of contrition

sung by whoever razed its main road into highway,

someone to siren the gas pumps back,

the mini marts, the motels.

I wanted a view of tundra swans

and rough-legged hawks,

the water and fields they land on,

but the forecast is against me

and I’m beginning to fill

with the curbside cold of this place,

my boots slushing towards the town’s single café.

Crosscut saws nailed to the walls,

their rust-pitted teeth, black and white

photos of mills. What I can’t explain

is the torso, the scapulae, the cathedral neck

of this half-a-giraffe upright in the corner;

taxidermist lodged the eye just right,

a starburst of hair to sprout from its chin,

ghost of forelegs and hind driving dust into air.

When the counterman asks where I’m from,

I don’t say how little I know about snow

or the taking of beasts for trophy.

I don’t talk about faith or how quickly color

recedes from a storefront.

I hold out my hand for change and listen

to the tail lights in his voice, a big rig’s exhaust.

Foams brims in my cup,

SUVs speed north without stopping. Christ,

who would I be if I didn’t hear them?

California

By Cynthia Randolph

My permanent August my indeterminate summer

sidewalks remember

everything peering into open doorways

through which soon children will return

once again to school new clothes new lists

accumulate of what I still want

you driving through the neighborhood of

the articulate moon

tongue-tied how do we find language

for these sibylline hours

not far from the cathedral we hear the sound

someone stapling a flier

announcing they lost their cat but don’t worry

he was just seen

yesterday I held California so tightly against my body

it almost hurt

but not enough

Wild Golden West

By M.S.A. Bacon

The golden state of my mind runs wild

Wildfires

Wildlife

Wildflowers

Drought resister, Coyote Brush is evergreen in the desert

while Purple Chinese Houses prefer shade for their innocent pagodas

and the orange, red, white Sticky Monkey Flower thirsts for moisture

Light Baby Blue Eyes trail chaparral, grassy valleys, woodlands

late winter to early summer

Telegraph Weed’s golden flowers, give way to fluffy round seed heads

sowing silkgrass along roadsides

Butterflies cluster to clusters of the sticky white flowers,

edged in pink that is Mulefat

Common Deerweed too, nurture butterflies and bees

in dry, barren scrub or cool, coastal settings

The feathery lavender, pink, purple flower heads,

of Purple Owl’s Clover may resemble paintbrushes,

but the name belongs to Indian Paintbrush

splashing desert, meadow, and seaside in dusty reds and pink purples

Purple, pink, green tinged globes of white flowers

White Fairy Lanterns light up shrubland and woodlands alike

While Wooly Blue Curls the coast like warm fog

but the red, dark pink cups of Red-Maids and

the vines of Old Man’s Beard, climbing 30 feet tall,

respect no boundaries

Respect is commanded by Sacred Datura’s fragrant white flowers

spirit medicine of the Chumash

Feral blooms abound in the dirt, dust, humus, sand of El Dorado

And through cracks in concrete and asphalt

our beloved Poppy persists

the true gold of the Golden State

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By Catherine Lipsetz Dauer

The fog brings gusts of sea life,

dry grass,

and churt.

The far above,

and far

away.

Its chill sinks deep into the left side of my face

and flavors every intake

long after my return home.

I savor that cold—

breathing in

and out.

Like being underwater.

Like life.

Open Mic

By Susan Dambroff

We come with poems
about our favorite stumps of trees
or how to love
in this frayed world
better

Our words stutter and careen
over landscapes of city blocks
homes of tarps
socks that become shoes
scraping the bottom

Words to offer care
to the woman
with the eyes of a cat
who asks for a water bottle
to fill and fill and fill

This open mic
these places
to be seen and heard
like podiums on the street
where anyone can rise and speak
about the state of our union
teleprompters of misinformation
all the lying to tell

So much difference
between a politician and a poet
and birds who still sing
into morning
with unrehearsed praise

To stand with a tender heart
in front of strangers
out of dreams
that still catch me naked
without script
the curtain about to open

To be fierce and frightened
like all the times in school
when I raised my hand
or didn’t
to read the paragraph out loud
or dare a question
To unwind the curls
of my own imagination
out of the shadows
of a featured poet
comes the shame of wanting
my own echo back

A sigh
a word of recognition
not the click of a reply
or the thumbs up
of a screened in
world

To be tangible not virtual
like this stormy winter
with all its nagging disappointments
and the joy of daffodil bulbs
rising into an early spring

How it is
to have each other’s backs
like the man who said
love is the way you can show up
and sit on the curb with someone

To be each other’s audience
to hold our staccato offerings
voices of a shared humanity
still left
between sidewalk cracks
of sweet grass
and flutes in train stations
walkers and dogs
climbing city peaks
expanding all sight lines
of possibility

A Pawnshop Moment in San Francisco

By Elise Kazanjian

Willie Saroyan prances into our Fillmore Street pawnshop, dressed in his World War II army uniform straining at the buttons, and we all gape. It's more than two decades after D-Day, what the heck is he doing in that uniform?

He pivots like on a fashion runway. He steals the eyes of Addie, trying on a small diamond ring she can't afford even though she just got $14,000 from the SF Redevelopment Agency. They will bulldoze the small cottage she has owned for forty years. She will disappear from the neighborhood. It's all courtesy of the Urban Renewal Project that James Baldwin called "negro removal".

All activity stops. We gawk. Ralph the pawnbroker smiles, welcomes Willie, a fellow Armenian, and a good friend.

"Willie, why are you wearing your Army uniform? Duhras (my lad), what's the matter with you?"

Willie answers, "I'm wearing it because it still fits. That's why".

Hearty laughter fills the corners of the store.

I think how superb that all of us, in a pawnshop, can get along. It comes easy to native San Franciscans.
I can breathe, fit into my skin when I walk the streets. I keep some dollars in my pockets. It's not very much but I get a smile in exchange. I greet strangers, some look frightened, others return a soft "Hi".

Even with so many changes, so many closures, so many problems, San Francisco is still the city of my dreams. For me, another eleven years to a century, and I know I will feel the same way.

Circumambulating Bernal Heights, San Francisco

By Elaine Elinson

I love climbing Bernal Hill accompanied by neighbors, dogs, red tail hawks, a murder of crows, and an occasional coyote.
I love the enduring memorial to Alex Nieto, gunned down by police, where walkers place flowers, shells, memories and stones. Surrounded by golden poppies.
I love the triangular boulder overlooking the Mission, City Hall, downtown, and the Bay Bridge. Our artists paint Bernal Rock like candy corn for Halloween, like a big red heart for Valentine’s Day, with messages like “Black Lives Matter.”
I love that our Bernal rock is now a slice of watermelon, the red, black, green and white symbol of the banned Palestinian flag.

On the Edge

By Daniel Raskin

There is always snow somewhere
Palm trees San Diego to Crescent City
Rock at 14,505, burning sands 282 feet below

Silicon billionaires, sidewalk tenters,
Ayahuasca trippers, fentanyl OD’s

Foodies heaven, hungry farm workers

It’s a tight rope from Pacific to Tahoe
UC will teach you to walk it

It’ll be fun when you get to one end or the other
Bars, restaurants, clubs, festivals
Open late until the next big one
Here on America’s edge.

San Francisco Song

By Kim Shuck

San Francisco late summer come early
Dance of the seven fogs the
Angle of sunlight kissing stucco facade
Blush pink
Embarrassed
Cartwheel sidewalks
Measured with roller skates
Pass my useless skate key on to you
Children of these new days an
Old conjuring
From somewhere
Somewhere else
Pouring beeswax through the head of a key to
Tell the future
Tell the future I
Know the choreography but
Can’t interpret the result you know these
Hills sing some afternoons
Sing with Pacific wind
Memory of all of the lyrics
Janis’ low voice shiver and
Tendrils from the Great Star Theatre
Polish birthday song and
Extinct birdsong and the
Humming of the bridge
Pass my useless zoo key on to you
Children of these new days an
Old conjuring that might
Fend off news from those who find
Six square blocks near the
Cable car turnaround and think they know us
Porch and heart and afternoon wind and yes it’s
Still three card monte if you use a
Tarot deck
Hunting up the star card on a festival day the
Rabbit in a steam punk hat
Her dazzling slight of hand trying to force the death card or the
Tower the
Tower on the hill the
Way I know home
Pass my useless house key on to you
Children of these new days the
Old Victorian burned down these years gone
Hold it in your left hand on a
Wednesday in February I
Have left a song for you to find there an
Old conjuring a
Mouthful of hope