Rambler's Notebook - San Francisco Poem by Yassin Adnan

You were coming from San Francisco
Tossing your aches and your notebooks
And the names of your beloveds
From the window of the Chevrolet
All the windows of the old car are open
It's hot
But the old driver hates air conditioning
Anxious to preserve the future of the sun and the air
In days to come
Anxious about the future of delight
In this valley
Seized by Goliaths
And the emperors of technology

In the Silicon Valley, once called 'Valley of Heart's Delight,' the spider builds its towers
From grass and branches
In Silicon Valley
Spiders drink from the blood of the place

Spiders on the trees
Spiders on the sides of the valley
Spiders in the brush
Spiders grazing among grasses like herds roaming
Spiders nesting in hearts

Nets everywhere
Woven by the spiders
Thread by
Thread
Slender infinitely delicate threads
Like steel

In Silicon Valley
Spiders weaving threads of steel from the undergrowth
To the world's wide web
Spiders weaving their threads from brushwood
To semiconductors
Between the leaves of Bay Laurel
And silicon chips
Spiders weaving thousands of threads
Between thickets
At the base of the mountains of Santa Cruz
And industrial solar cells

The deer were not bothered by what conspiracies the spiders were concocting for the valley
Neither were the coyotes
Nor the cougar

They were all wandering in the forest
As they have for thousands of years
Between the Oaks
And the Laurels

Giant sequoias in redwood forests
Towering
High
Green gods
From the time of the American Indian
Have not ceased engraving their commandments
In the heart of the sequoias
In the heart of lofty greenery
In the heart of the light
Perfectly, like one who preserves in a silo
Some fodder
Sealed away

And the branching magnolia, breathtaking blossoms of the magnolia, white, Daughter of the lofty tree,
Stealing the spirit of the sun
From the sun
And pouring it over the heads of lovers
Showers of rays
Crystalline
Shattered

You were
Strolling
In luxuriant glades
Avoiding the poison oak
And the black widow
Moving in a daze into the greenery
Bidding farewell in the forest's heart to the remains of the desert

But the pirate from Colorado
She will whisper in your ears
Proudly
In the tavern
'You're in California, darling, what in the world else do you need?
For God's sake
What in the world else do we need?'

Good morning, California
Morning of the pirate
Who has no ships
Raiding the Pacific Ocean
Without a lighthouse
Assaulting the beach at Santa Cruz
At dawn
Naked
Unarmed

Good morning, beach waves
Morning of poetry
And of poets

In City Lights, in the famous City Lights, the bookstore in San Francisco, there in North Beach, I met the gang one by one on a Sunday morning. It wasn't a meeting, but I pictured them having a late morning drink in Vesuvio Café. And in the little alley linking City Lights and the darkened bar, a girl with sleepy eyes is singing Bob Dylan. A Chinese man from the neighborhood behind is dancing. And the girl is knocking on heaven's door again and again. And she's playing. She's knocking and singing. The guitar weeps under her fingers and passersby stop. Some sing along and some disrupt the reeling dance of the Chinese man. The street fair in the alley is jammed with visitors from the time of the poets. Two girls are selling feathers and the dreams of American Indians. A pregnant girl barely past twenty is smoking like crazy and displaying two hats and a dress. A man is selling books and water pipes. The Chinese dancer looks drunk and free. I doubt he knows any of you. But the guitar is weeping under the fingertips of the guitarist of 10 am.

So let's knock on heaven's door
One after another
Poets of San Francisco

The Blues aren't Mexican always
O Jack Kerouac
But I'm not that sad stranger
And friends
Have not yet died inside me
And I'm here reading your hoard of poems upstairs at City Lights
Peering through the crack
Between one poem and another
And the girl in the alley next door is still singing Bob Dylan

Life tastes like a morning quarrel between two bored lovers
O Diane di Prima
But I don't have anyone to quarrel with now
Here
Upstairs
On a Sunday morning
And the girl in the neighboring alley is still singing Bob Dylan

But
What time is it now?

'Bukowski, please, what time is it now?'
The girl who was singing Bob Dylan
Is gone
It seems Heaven's doors are closed
And you
It's like you returned
To your old dream of a poem
Allotting volcanoes
Equally
Among the neighboring hills
I'll take the opportunity to correct you a little, O Charles
With all due respect to your experience
And your taste in wars
But the First World War was never the best
Once you were gone, more wars broke out
That were more romantic
And filthier
Allow me to correct you
I don't blame you
For in life we talk about what we have lived
About what we have seen in movies
And read in books
But the most beautiful
And the filthiest things
Remain fettered to doubt
Beyond certainty

Desires of the damned
Are not fulfilled by angels, O Charles
And we are stupid
We yearn in vain for the touch of the angel
In a city haunted by Djinn
As for the girl who was singing in the neighboring alley
She's gone
Gone is the pregnant girl too
Gone is the reeling drunk
And the man selling books
And water-pipes

Oh
How sweet return if not for the road
How cruel return
If not for
The road

Then you came back to the grass where you nap
On scattered palm fronds
Among the orange trees
And the pomegranates
You said: Greetings, Marrakech
Greetings
O Mother of Gardens
I was thirsty so I reached out for the spring
O spring, increase my thirst
For my blood is colored with water
My blood is tainted with
Water