Oakland poems

I've been thinking about Oakland lately, and the sort of illusory and plastic nature of "place." Here are a couple of poems stemming from that:



This must be more than just

us, these words upon you.

Stories climb out as veins;

pave our roads, carve clouds

from sky. Oakland...we have

yet our obligations. There is

more there than here, and no

index has been imagined. A

woman in an evening coincides

with violence, skirting briefly

along its edge. She walks

home, still in love and aware.

...

A city invoked becomes

every city to subtle senses

until we cannot leave—urwilderness

denatured, newly flowered

with glass and glancing light.

The alphabet of trees has been

bombed, made strange, but one

cannot escape environment. We

leak complexity, our borders

flicker. Send me a letter and I

will reply with sutures, drifting

stories, digital photographs.