They came to me that night

Oh what a night

The band played Waltzing Matilda

Waited for me to sing

as I roared like a wounded bear

San Francisco on Green Street ,

The owner said put your money away

The beer, it’s on the house

Hey, ain’t you….

That guy

No, I said , hell man you sure

Look like that guy,

No, not me ,

Goddam, you sure look

Like him,

I was in Monterey

Sitting by a campfire

The guy I saw through the

Flames , he sure looked

Like John Steinbeck,

Those beers really fuck with

Your brain ,

On the bus to Salinas

Full with Mexicans and dark

Dystopian figures

I watched East of Eden

From a dirty window ,

I was headed for the Steinbeck Musuem

I passed a sort of antique shop

A guy was standing at the entrance,

Come in he said, come in , like some

Old carny , he showed me the bank vault,

Man, this is a piece of art,

See those screws ,

Beautiful man, beautiful,

After the museum I found a bar ,

Got to talking to a big guy from Texas

He wasn’t James Dean or even Rock,

But he kept buying me beers

Got back to Monterey another night

Met an Antifa boy from

Eugene Oregon, shoeless Joe, and some funky

German gal working at the aquarium,

Want to see the surf beach ,

Yeah, why not ,

Like Kerouac and Cassady

And sweet Mary Lou

We danced naked

Didn’t matter the sagging belly

The toothless grin

The whitening hair

The bent spine

Following the curvature

Of the earth

All is good as the Bible says

And the waves crashed onto

The rocks…whew that weed

Was something Pure

Hey , you look like ….

You know. What’s his name ,

Yeah.

Sacred grounds cafe on Hayes steeet, San Francisco