A.D. Winans: California Poets Part 8, Five Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
A.D. Winans
Five Poems
SAN FRANCISCO SKYLINE
San Francisco skyline
Blanketed in fog
Wears her history
Like a harlot dressed
In a tight-fitting dress.
Her breath fills your nostrils with longing
She’s a ballerina walking a high tension wire
Ghosts of her past dissolve into each other
Rooms of walls dare you to enter.
Fists clenched like a boxer
She plays your mind like a card shark
Doors of Nirvana open and close
Like trick mirrors at the fun house.
She’s like an aging jockey
Looking for one last ride
On a magnificent horse
That crosses the finish line
Barely breaking a sweat.
LOST SUMMER OF LOVE
We made love in this house
That long ago Summer of Love
The sun peaking through The tattered shades
Of the old Victorian structure
Where we jammed on the floor
All day and night
Posters of Janis Joplin
And Jimmy Hendrix on the walls
An empty six-pack
A burned-out roach for company
Made music with our bodies
As the nine-to-five crowd prepared
Their death march to work.
Passing this house decades later
The months the years piled-up
Like liter
I watch a cat in the alley
Stake out its territory
Stare down a would-be intruder.
Visions of that lost Summer of Love
Flicker inside my head
Ignite a fire extinguished
Quick as a blink
Death crawls sideways
Up the banister carries away
My memories in an empty satchel.
WOMAN ON THE BALCONY
I see her two three times a week
sitting on the balcony
when weather permits
here in old Italy town
in what is left of North Beach.
her robe slightly parted
she thumbs through the pages
of a book she may or not be reading
takes no notice of the people coming
and going down below.
I watch her stand legs like sturdy pillars
that stretch to reach the sky
into the boundaries of my mind.
my eyes beg to read the pages
she turns with sensual fingers
want just one quick look
one intimate journey into the pages
into the space between
the parting of her robe.
a journey to forbidden places
a flight back in time
to another place another world
high on a balcony where I too
ignore the people coming and going
down below.
NEW YEAR'S DAY POEM
Some things stick in your mind
Like dental cement
Your first kiss
The Kennedy assassination
The wild years
A trip down Highway 101
Foot stuck to the petal
Hugging the middle lane
At a hundred miles an hour
A break dance destined
To turn into a two-step shuffle.
Restless cursed with insomnia
I take a 5 AM walk through
The streets of Noe Valley
The neighborhood a ghost town
A sleeping lion waiting on its prey.
Back home a poem takes shape
Nibbles at my brain cells
A beggar hungry for food
But the cupboard is empty.
I retreat into the amnesia of yesterday
The lost treasure of my youth
A pirate with a graying beard
Destined to board forever
A midnight ghost ship
Rocking aimlessly at sea.
MEXICO DREAM POEM
I see you in my dreams
you are wearing a silk scarf
your smile hovers over me
like a hummingbird.
You stand at the public square
the women are selling pottery
the men playing cards.
A cat crosses the road
purrs against your slender legs
you an early century Madonna
with no need for church or man.
Sit cross-legged like Buddha
Words swirl inside my head
like helicopter blades
sweet fragrance of lilacs draws me in
sweet as a virgin spread across
a field of roses.
Author Bio:
A.D. Winans is an award-winning native San Francisco poet, writer, and essayist. His work has appeared in over 500 Literary magazines, anthologies, and newspapers. He is the author of over eighty books and chapbooks of poetry and prose. He edited and published the acclaimed Second Coming magazine and press from 1972 to 1989. The press archives are housed at Brown University. He was friends with Charles Bukowski, Bob Kaufman, Jack Micheline, Harold Norse, Jack Hirschman, David Meltzer, Diane di Prima, Josephine Miles, Gregory Corso, and many other Beat and Post Beats. Awards include a Pen National Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, a PEN Oakland Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Kathy Acker award in poetry and publishing.
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