Oakland
I love my city
huey newton
first declared
oakland occupied
in a very different
sense
more like paris
or baghdad
forty years later
& suddenly
THE TOWN
dogged the flame
from zuccotti park
new yorkers chanted
we are oakland
& even in egypt
they knew
I love my city
the priced out
progressives of
san francisco
entered the
panther cage
explosive combo
to rock the dome
of robocop
our summer of love
was an autumn of blood
in the neolexicon
but i love my city
cuz we mean
peace
demonstrated
repeatedly
at the 2011
general strike:
nonviolence
='d no police
& so many poets
there & boots
from the coup
& later i'm told
rexroth & lamantia
were at the last
general strike
in '46 & i'm like
i love my city
birthplace of scrapers
& scraper bikes
home at one time
to gertrude stein
earl fatha hines
alden van buskirk
Erich von Astroheim
too short & zpac
shock-g & sheila e
baby jayvees
larry graham &
pharaoh sanders
i'll take j. stallion
over jay z any day
occupy all streets?
occupy deez
i love my city
in massachusetts
lawrence &
andover
in new jersey
piscataway &
new brunswick
in brighton
england
in berkeley
california
i hated living
not until oakland
did i love home
i've lived here
fifteen years
it's been a long
long reckoning
since i first laid
eyes on leaving
but now it's
at hand
i could be like
fuck it, it's gone
duck dynasty
on me but i'd
be kidding me
i miss it like
a horny lover
& i haven't
yet left
o oakland
black city
i've known
your ghettos
stone city to
murder clubs
the lower bottoms
the 'corns &
cypress
ghosttown
dogtown
jingletown
call me danny
from sorbent
keak da sneak
or deev da
muthafuckin
greed
there's no south o
that's just the bay
sprouting from
heinhold's first
& last chance
& fuck jack
london & jack
london square
i drink there for
ambrose bierce
the north's called
ice city but also
temescal
which means
sweat house
in nahuati
& my friends feels
of sun poem for cells
translates nahuati
& my friend fab
of super sic wid it
put north o on
the rap map
i'm connected here
i saw oscar grant
become an icon
tho i'm sure
he'd rather
be alive
lake merritt poem:
to judge the change
in seasons by
observing water
fowl: red ducks
blue ducks
pelicans &
cranes
the goddamn
geese never leave
the herons hide
in the trees
by the postoffice
where rumor (&
the new york times)
had them tossed
in the woodchopper
just like the feds
to pass the buck
to the hapless
subcontractor
they say oakland's
the new brooklyn
but part of it
used to be
brooklyn
know your history
o makers of anthologies
parvenues of telegraph
avenue, i been
been here
on mamas
on see-through
it's lightweight mine
_____________
Garrett Caples
Power Ballads
Wave Books 2016
yes, I typed the whole poem
with its lower case, infuriating italics
with google down and not able to connect the Internet (rainy day in the woods)
while the film The Lobster (grueling ) plays
and my elder age eye sight dimming
never mind a correct-speller wanting to 'educate' garrett about his spelling
that is perfectly in key
