Jeffreys announced: “Holmes, we have a party for two: away with them!”

and swerve went the Catholic crowd,

chomping on frozen Friday night fried fish sticks 

"and hold the handshakes and prayers"

next aside Jeffreys lamented,

“I can’t believe it, so dirty!

There should be a law mandating bidets!”

later picking over satori visions 

thru Fisherman’s Wharf food house window,

my whiskey fueled maniac tablemate

blurbs from his drinkin glass, 

bubbling profanities between his yellow stained teeth

astonished at my mad blue pen

streaking 200 miles an hour this “all too personal poetry”,

while from adjacent tables

objections are seeded somewhere 

south of Marina Bay’s mechanical pulleys,

self-manufactured ropes

but now Jeffreys is back,

smugly spinning dimes, hustlin:

“thanks a lot for the 30% even a 20% tip!"

“sure thing”!, my dining companion apathetically looks up,

all the I am pondering:

“are these cross country trips hinged on 

which coast abandons you,

which town breaks your heart,

which trail ascends enuf for prayer,

or which road descends enuf to abandon all hope”?

cause it certainly seems 

there’s hardly ever enough gas 

left in my tank,

these recent foggy Baghdad by the Bay

Indian summer 

new age years

9/21/73

Fish Wharf, SF