All That Gold: Heatwave

All that gold 
And all that jazz
All that glitters
And all that cold
Sadness of
Frittered away
Days 
And summer haze
Disappearing 
Over the event
Horizon
Of San Francisco Bay.

All that gold 
And all that waste
Of human treasure
Failing to get 
A taste of life.
Having and holding
Onto a world gone
Unfeeling
Senses left
Reeling
In the heat
And the smog
And the found
And the lost
Stolen hope!
At such a cost,
In this City
Of Have too much
And have not a lot. 

All that's buried
And all that's dug up
All that is promised
Down in the scrum
And the muck,
All that is dirty
And all that's been 
Cleaned
All that shines yet
Is not allowed to 
Truly gleam.

All that richness
And all that power
All that suffering
And longing for
A long cold mind shower
All that manna
And all that crack
All that buzzes
Down in some North
Beach cocktail shack
All that was and 
All that is
Lays inert
And makes
It's 
Final
Wish.

All that gold is going to waste on the streets of San Francisco. Once it was buried under the hills, now it is dying down Van Ness and Franklin. It is suffering on Geary. It is scrabbling down in the gutters of O’Farrell and Turk, trying to scrape an existence from those dirty streets whose treasures are buried under shopping carts full of broken dreams and other people’s sins. All that glitters is not gold. All that is gold is not allowed to glitter. The day kept climbing and climbing. 94 Degrees and rising. All that gold is too much to take.