pumpkin pie

bedecked in purple sunshine powder costumes

we drift along golden dulcimer alleyways

absorbing wax museum facades

exchanging cowboy hats

passing smoke rolled shamrocks

beatifically nescient of further responsibilities to the street

except an occasional hop step between sidewalk cracks

or a hover above these vacant breezes blowing off Harmonic Bay

here at this parade

visibility proudly remains as hopeless as the ashtrays we reach for,

donating expense accounts without wondering why,

focusing on the occasional purplelight searchlights

riding up and down these foghorn abstract shorelines

where elegant bums collect coin

after improvising mad stories between rusted Yakutat harpoons

or unhinged passing cattle haulers from Kansas and the Dakotas

yes, for some, hustlin is an acceptable way to celebrate

without asking out someone to go dancin…

so we somehow glide on by a huddled crowd of bearded bohemian scholars

absorbed in parking lot dice games,

fingering calculators behind their backs

reckoning where the next kewpie doll fortuitous lunch will come from,

while others intently photograph pumpkin pie mermaids

thru open ended lenses

dodging their rebound black and white reflections,

and further along we consider open rusty boxcars

parked along rainy Northern Pacific tracks,

contemplate polarized frozen December Greyhound bus stations

where Neal and Jack once saluted the same departing federalies

clutching their ammunition goldtooth paychecks,

as at last we welcome the next

coming-on-anyhow nighttime

San Francisco, 1976