Poetry meme

Well, there's that poetry meme going around. First off, I must direct you to this wonderful Cheese sestina that I read over at chzmongrrrweeps. I laughed. I cried. It was like they were writing about my life.

But, in the spirit of things, I'll type one by George Kauffman.

May Day Unsung 

Pardon us,
     we seem to have taken
     a wrong turn. May Day
has become unsung,
    the Red Square 
silent and the technique
    of the West
has overcome the will
    of the people.
    We are six workers
          in search
    of a revolution,
          and we shall
               bury you.

now go post some poetry in your own LJ.

My visit home

My hometown is claustrophobic and strange. Even though I grew up there, I can’t feel relaxed. I’d like to say that I never did, but that’s not really correct. I was always alienated from it to be sure, but I used to know how to blend. It’s just not true anymore.

It’s changed a lot since the last time I lived there full-time which was 1985. It was a rich suburb when I was growing up but even richer now. Not a single friend from high school still lives there that I know of, everyone moving to the cheaper Bay Area cities or suburbs, further north, or out of the state entirely. Nothing I used to do is still there, my favorite hippie café located right near where kittynitro grew up, closed down a few years ago. The mall where I worked is still there but the photo lab is long gone. The hills I used to hang out and drink on top of are now covered in multi-million dollar houses.

Mostly I just go through Marin to get to Sonoma County or to go to the coast. I’ve still never seen anything more beautiful in the world than the West Marin part of the Pacific ocean. But when my vacation plans fell through I found myself house-sitting my parents’ house for a couple of days. They were attending their 50th high school reunion. Yes, they started dating in high school, in New Jersey. They probably felt some similar alienation having not returned there for 40-some years.

I drove through Marin on 101 a couple of weeks ago with twomartinis and felt like I had to keep saying "used to". That’s where we used to hang out. That used to be a bowling alley. That’s where the hippies used to live. Those used to be marshes before the malls were built. The "used to" is funny because it’s not like I ever wanted to stay where I grew up. I wanted to move to San Francisco as soon as possible. But even if I never wanted to stay, I can recognize that it was still better, you know, back then.

The best description of Marin I can think of is simply linking this entry by an old friend. "Kinda late for sitting outside" . Novato is rumored to have more SF cops as residents than SF does and it makes the local cops try harder. It’s not like when I lived in Ithaca, NY and the cops simply told people they didn’t like "Leave town or else". But all the visible Novato punk rockers lost their licenses, motorcycles, and at times their freedom for the way they looked. But that was the ‘80s and I thought punk was cuter and more acceptable now. Marin is hassling a 35 year old mother of two teenagers for doing laundry and smoking a cigarette after midnight.

But I actually don’t hold much of a grudge. I couldn’t have asked for a prettier place to grow up and it was close to things that I ended up needing and liking. It’s just odd to return to a physical place I spent, basically, the first 18 years of my life in, but that has no roots, almost no friends, and very few visual memories. Especially when it’s only just over the bridge.
These days I expect to be anonymous when I go there, in fact I prefer it. My brother and I went out to a Vietnamese restaurant where they complimented me on my pronunciation when I ordered. Since "my" Vietnamese comes only from sounding out the words, and I guess from living in a city, I couldn’t tell if I had stumbled into correct sounds or if I was being structurally sucked up to as a smart business decision.

But at the very next table there were friends of friends. They recognized me and gave us the "You’re brothers? You don’t look anything alike." line that I’d be used to if I hung out with my brother more. But it was awkward because I last saw them at my friend Ron’s funeral and that sat between us like a suburban hedge. We could kinda see over it, but the effort was exhausting.

The evening ended with my brother saying, "Hmmm, I never thought about it that way," when I remarked that he never got along with our sister whom he never got along with. I’m six and seven years younger than they are, and all I remember about the times when they were both living at home were stereo wars, yelling, and the occasional broken door. "Hmmmm," I replied.

My hometown. There’s not much there for me and it certainly doesn’t feel like home.