James Brook

 

Photograph by Peter Booth Wiley

Tremble

Capital and catastrophe in the life of the city . . .

glimmer of the young woman's nose ring
five short trees in dead-end square
hospital breeze patch of sun
no one stops on the way to church or store

*

the whole sad deal of culture
she watches hawks like a hawk
fog spills into the valley below
reverie a spin

*

there was a dream of text to live in
there was a dream of text to unwrite
with new distribution of sense to things
it was meant to be the worst case

*

palm strikes flat against glass
of first car to run the light
vertigo the deserted finance
a woman in tears

*

sports section business page christ
on the streetcar a wisp of a hymn
passing the ballpark
where logos and homeless cohabit

*

Filipina black glasses black vest from Jalisco
sings "una bella ragazza, chi me piace più"
sings over the stinking gasoline leaf-blower
sings over "Is this China? Africa? Man, America was white!"

*

message chasing message
coin stacked on coin
am so tired
I dream of fatigue

*

you open their catalog of attractions
to suspension bridge page 21
"je veux I want je veux I want . . .
my parents are from Auschwitz"

*

celestial versions tell it on the phone
here's sweet gasoline on a hot day
toasting our Chirico sightlines
my giants converse mine tease mortals

*

hard labor alerts security
to be young
and dance beneath tropic palms
to mimic mimic's whole curve

*

now it forgets more science
erodes a diagram on the collage principle
as rental boats cavort in the bay of eviction
nomads circulate before windowless towers

*

mindless in his repertoire
he knocks her hot coffee spilling
"excuse me for living fucking bitch"
submerges into headphones

*

in the ranks of the coveted
well-coiffed idols are taken only by force
slaves at work and slaves at play big truck
exhibited navel the accelerated bitter rich

*

smile is magic to property
construction is magnet to garden
handshake builds the house
in disorder and wind and tears

*

the chartered creek flows
under the old mission walls
school children mustered
in single file on forgotten graves

*

that natural feeling on the hillside
near vertical staircase to vista
otra palabra el gringo bags en la colina
as prop for the re-gaze of production

*

where we stand is dusty constructivism
yellow tape hard hat container
cute goddesses of commerce
address us

*

disorder in the wind a short course
in point and shoot a kind of splotch
and the grinding action of coding wheels
blinking mammal in blue-white flash

*

hollow cinema orbits of floating trash
a solemn child with three umbrellas
a bodyguard a surround of taxpayers
each one each ghost caption typo need

*

two young women in black suits a man the same
in the empty park bayview postcard row victorians
equal new in the world equidistant modest
turn away to remote conversations on the black phones

*

yellow yellow ye
llow yellow
yellow back-hoe
yellow yellow ye

*

squad car sphinx crossroads down and cry
apparent rotation of the red lights
doppler effect sings the urgent appeal
fall down and cry there in the panic the city

*

tall
crane
in
mid

 

-August-December 2000
http://www.shapingsf.org/grant_bldg

 

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