Poetry / Rivers

Rivers

From the back alley babbling brooks
to tulmultuous tributaries of humanity
cascading through concrete gorges
and finally spilling into a frenzied asphalt rivers,

Stockton doesn’t meander.
There are no oxbows or lazy switchbacks,
no quiet backwaters or cool, clear pools,
rather raging swift and straight,
colliding perpendicular with rivers equally intent.

Heads bob,
rapids roar in tongues;
arms flail
and struggle to break the surface.

What lurks there
in the shadows of these polluted depths?
What primal beasts,
concealed there behind those cordoroy and denim tides?

Wet things.
Wild things.
Secret things.
A community of hungry things,
wanting to feed,
wanting to spawn,
wanting to hide
in the fecund depths.

They are caught in the current,
and, go with the flow
until Stockton collides with Broadway
spewing torrents east and west.

There in the eddies,
in the wake of the reefs
called the Condor Club and the Hungry I,
fins flash and white teeth shine
through the murky confusion of the tides.

The sharks sing their Siren songs;
“Come on, man.
Its right here, man.
Its all good here, man.”

They hawk the crowds,
circling, circling,
until another tired levee breaks,
washing a fresh tsunami across the swirling
sea.

The human flotsum boils
onward,
daily,
and seemingly forever.

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