Tourists in a Tourist Town

TOURISTS

From Fisherman’s Wharf to the Bridge, Golden Gate,

To Chinatown, Lombard Street, Asbury and Haight,

Tourists complain that the fog is too cold

While million-dollar houses wait to be sold.

They zip ‘round in GoCars, some rent the bikes.

Some lean in on Segways, some go for hikes.

Families like cable cars and Madame Tousaud’s;

Poets like City Lights. There they read odes

By Beatniks, while Hippies revisit the grounds

Where they dropped LSD and listened to sounds

Of Creedence Clearwater and the Dead, meaning Grateful.

But all tourists thrill at ’06 and the fateful

Day when the city came tumbling down.

They imagine the Gold Rush, that build up the town,

And see themselves up in a manse on Nob Hill,

Then retire after dining on steak at John’s Grill.

But while buffalo sleep in Golden Gate Park,

Some tourists do dangerous things after dark.

They prowl the Castro, score drugs in the Mission,

Some meet with radicals plotting sedition.

For tourists the city’s a park with a theme.

Taking photos of landmarks, they’re lost in a dream.

They’re never the people who surf Ocean Beach

Though they dine at the Cliff house just within reach.

Have they heard of Excelsior, Richmond or Sunset?

Do their tour busses drive through the streets Alphabet

Where families live and kids go to school?

No, they don’t pass Land’s End and the Sutro Baths pool.

From Fisherman’s Wharf to the Bridge, Golden Gate,

To Chinatown, Lombard Street, Asbury and Haight,

Tourists complain that the fog is too cold

While million-dollar houses wait to be sold.

#Tourists #SanFrancisco

The Golden Gate Bridge

Stuck in traffic is the best way to appreciate it.

Those who walk stop to take pictures of Alcatraz,

And Angel Island and the hillsides crowded with pastel houses.

But they don’t stop for the bridge. The wind is too cold.

In the car, you’re stuck with it.

You come face to face with it.

You feel the wind shake it,

And the weight of cars strain it.

You look left, going north,

And there’s nothing but blue,

Perhaps a container ship bound for China.

You look right, toward the view,

But find it blocked

By tourists capturing sights on phone cameras.

You look up and it hits you.

The orange steel towers contrast the blue sky.

The mighty harp of suspension cables

Cries out to be stroked

By some industrial giant of the past.

You notice, on the west side, a small official-looking

Vehicle - or is it a clown car? -

That shuttles the two dudes who paint the damn thing.

It takes them a year.

Then they paint it again,

Like the lamp lighter in Le Petit Prince,

Trapped in their work,

Trapped like me in traffic,

Between the Presidio and the headlands,

A prisoner of the staggering works of man

And the miraculous beauty

Of God’s creation.

#SanFrancisco #GoldenGateBridge #Tourists