Beyond the tired streets, the sweat-soaked cotton sheets,
Beyond the hills that wind into the distance,
Past the masks of the city that fade
Softly into sunshine's sickly face
Higher than the arrogant columns of the hotels
That rise up with a certain indecision and lack of grace...
Further than the sky, void of rain, having bled itself out all winter's long
Where the breezes are birthed into the realm of song;
Here I am, crumbling into the realm of the past
Where once I stood in the present, solid and mighty,
Now parched and frozen and dying of thirst.
Yet
I am wonder's child once more
Seeing with new eyes how the
Window gardens are garlanded
With bees and blue-bottle flies,
How the hills that lead out of here
Are crowned with arterial roads
And the blood of San Francisco,
Oh how it flows and flows and flows:
A million little stories
Of the highways and
Beyond
Further
Past
The seams of the city
And its acres of falling glass.
