San Fran Review – Arts + Letters from the Bay Area & Beyond

Edward Hopper appliquè

webmaster / March 14, 2020April 2, 2024 / New Arts & Letters from SF Bay Area & Beyond

film star Dennis not
Edward Hopper appliquè
his deep sea dive brush play

pulsing light & shadow blodgets
over diners in Chop Suey
edging out modernity
a marinade kablooey

gruffly puffing cigarettes
tapping mystic slats
characters on dingy platforms
sporting porkpie hats

trumpets nonpareil
the sketchiest of scenes
Nighthawks talks and walks
a storybook uh dreams

evokes fantastic monkeyshines
an empty sky okay dapples it a snappy way
heark’ning back to Nyack
a Cape Ann shore line channeled

Hopper’s curious & audacious
windswept daubs remind
float the mind blowingly vast
azure sea of time

More bob plainwilder poems:

–a san francisco beat (this one’s dedicated to all the visionary painters out there)
–a spiritual muckrake (dedicated tor artists interested in free speech and making social progress thru art)

ode to george grosz

webmaster / March 7, 2020April 2, 2024 / New Arts & Letters from SF Bay Area & Beyond, Surreal Poetry

George Grosz - bob plainwilder poetry

this mongoose of an artist
in a gonzo fray,
shining light on everything,
a prophet of his day.

grosz, insightful visionaire
he’d fabulously shine
his canvas putting needles on
civilization in decline.

authoritarian decadence in
brushstrokes big and bold…
grosz unequaled social critic
prescient, foretold.

casting flawless light upon
the worst degeneration,
bureaucrats misguided,
moneyed interests waving fists

grosz portraying toxic snipes
who’d wipe goodness from our midst!
courageous artists on the scene
today are sorely missed.

grinding metal corporate teeth

webmaster / March 5, 2020April 2, 2024 / Poetry About San Francisco, Surreal Poetry

way down deep in dinjyville
waitin for a train
stumblebum plinkin phone
beneath monster office tower

people stuck in mires
worlds away from real fulfillment
in the maelstrom of each day

everywheres another cranky
smart device encrusted soul
sinkin down into some hole
nuthin much to say

bleary eyed and far away
disappointed also

danglin’ off this hapless joe
grinding metal corporate teeth
that don’t let go

Drawing above by Frost Newton

da san francisco beat

webmaster / March 5, 2020April 2, 2024 / New Arts & Letters from SF Bay Area & Beyond

tell you what my brain is
out there on some windswept corner
dripping silver rain

layin low wit la dee dah
storybook gypsy rose lee

nothing but grandiloquent
she goes on inducing me
to contemplate a ne’er do well
crablike crawl across da sea

rolling up me ultra fuzzy joint
wit inky mystery
backlit by some har dee har
razor tin rocket car

an interplanetary clown
i spacewalk down a boulevard
heady somehow carving footprints in da margin’s edge
flippantly i postulate in a far out bar
ricocheting utterwhirldly
sparks frum my guitar

weisenheimer stains on shoit
emblematic righteous doit
not a schmendrik really
messy boiling down a white hot seat

tony rice a roni
da san francisco beat

–Hear bob plainwilder read this poem

bob plainwilder music:

– IMPACT!

More bob plainwilder poems:

–edward hopper appliquè (this one’s dedicated to all the visionary painters out there)
–i grew up a muckrake (dedicated to artists interested in free speech and making social progress thru art)

ode to Soho Zat

webmaster / March 4, 2020April 2, 2024 / New Arts & Letters from SF Bay Area & Beyond

Stan at Soho Zat selling Bad Newz
fanzines from a spinner rack —
10 or 20 every ish
Stan turned round reliably

Stan would actually pay
an EZ going operator
out there in his way

before social internet
Zat supported youth culture
moving comic books & zines…
no mobile phones then!

that place just a memory
packed in Soho Zat,
arcane klumps of history…
celebrating that!

More bob plainwilder poems:

–edward hopper appliquè (this one’s dedicated to all the visionary painters out there)
–me, a teenage muckrake (dedicated to artists interested in free speech and making social progress thru art)

Welcome – The San Francisco Review

webmaster / April 21, 2017April 2, 2024 / New Arts & Letters from SF Bay Area & Beyond

We’re New. Arts, Letters & Culture from SF Bay & Beyond.

Issue #1, Now – Contents:

George Grosz
|

Selective Taste
|

The Savior
|

The Defiant Ones
|

Daly City, California

webmaster / April 17, 2017April 2, 2024 / Creative Nonfiction About San Francisco

Stack of suburban pancakes,
served with syrup, fries,
2 baked eggs, and no hungry
grandfather.

We were not born here
and we will not die here,
it said on the news.

Lay back in your chair
and count the blue stars
that fall from the ceiling.

Bomb Sniffing Dog Symbol

webmaster / April 17, 2017April 2, 2024 / Surreal Music Video, Surreal Poetry

Remembering Richard Brautigan

webmaster / April 16, 2017April 2, 2024 / Creative Nonfiction About San Francisco

There was this movie theater on Geary Street in San Francisco, now long gone. I can’t even remember what movie it was that brought me there that night with a woman who could have been a second or third date, but I do remember that we were inside the theater lobby waiting for the audience of the last show to depart.

As we stood there I happened to look across the room and saw a familiar face. I couldn’t place it right away. I kept looking until I said to myself, “Wait a minute! I know that guy, because he looks exactly as he does on the cover his novel, ‘Trout Fishing in America.’ That’s Richard Brautigan!”

So I said to my date, “You see that guy over there? That’s the writer Richard Brautigan. Have you ever read his work?”

She responded that she hadn’t. I went on to say something like, “He’s a fine writer, and very funny at times. I recently finished one of his novels!”

Not long after that, I came across his obituary: committed suicide at his place in Bolinas, which is about an hour drive from my house.

From then on, whenever I read something by Brautigan, I pictured him standing there in the lobby of that movie theater. Looking exactly as he did on the cover of that book. . .

At Least 10 Minutes Away

webmaster / April 16, 2017April 2, 2024 / Creative Nonfiction About San Francisco

Coming home on the N Judah around 3 p.m.
a homeless man gets on at one of the stops
holding a blanket, a pillow, and all of his
worldly possessions in a cotton sack.

As soon as he sits down in the front,
everyone gets up and moves to the back.

Now the only one sitting within a few feet of him,
I take in the strongest smell of urine and excrement
that my nostrils can remember.

And just as I’m about to get up myself,
the guy turns to me and says, “Good to see you!”
and smiles a toothless smile that makes me feel
too guilty to move,

So I smile back holding in most of my breath,
hoping I don’t faint before the streetcar
arrives at my spot. . .
at least 10 minutes away.