Glenn Bach

From: Atlas

whose house tumbled

down to the street

the city laid out

by those who see

no beauty

but dead level

who fled

(the nobs of Nob Hill

the Norteños who guarded

Chavez 

                               but why not Debra Rojas

                               or Ana Murguia)

New Almadén of the mercury

ammonia benzene sulfur

dioxide along the Carquinez

Straits in Hunter's

Point in Silicon

Valley

                       many had to pay

                       for the errors of judgement

                       committed by a few

if the business of making

cities the stories we tell

are partly to blame

if a city

is an empty signifier

who gets to fill it

who washed up on these shores

                       this fig tree has 18 leaves

                                            is a handsome

                                                                in truth a grove

                                                    of threetrrre tree known as

                                                                 Old Hespero

                                            whose holotype defined

                                                     the species

all fitting into one

                            another

                       straw mats

                                       slew

                            in the salty

                                               pack in the

                                           hollows

                                                                              soughing

                                   of rope slings

                         cranes

                            such feather-

                            bedding conditions

                                      handed to us by

                               a previous generation

                                                            the speed-

                                              up

                                                    yr

                                      back

                                            break-

                                                              bulk hoisted

to protect a measure

of sunlight a non-vanishing perspective       

of the sun-lit set-

backs

are the workhorses that shape our city

one or two delis          in puffy

                                                  winter jackets

landfill of pottery & glass

Pea Goose

Ruffle Bar Huckle-

Berry Columbia  

stone wall          trees      a smoking

chimney) cliff-dwellers      deaden

hoohaw

the beautifully drawn

The balance has tipped with each minded breath

sun to foggy dusk in the park

of the white church

                               to the gorge there were many rocks

                                 secret

                              fireside

                                            secretgaunt

                                            signpostclacking

                                                                          zeal

                                     of seas

                                                   blister                     

                                                         outstretched retreat

                                                    the fence of winter

                                                          ambition

                                                        rolltop                     

if you can climb a rope

over a rock there is no

real trail

                    the world too old with our new words,

                    no howl of complaint

            dawn

                and here we are

                                  soaring over

                                                                     open to any page

disjunct along

the shores of the Great

Lakes: littorale

                            sea side blue     stem

          )FAMILY var. (Nash

                                           hitch: culms loosely

by the bent stems

turns coppery (the cilia

                                    of the rachis an adapted

                             source is needed

                                          or keeled) ligules

                                          or awned

as the former

has bent stems

                            coast al lit     tle blue stem

upright habit

resemble mats

see range map in

with 'species'

is found: every

                               where