◦°˚ О D E L A П D ˚°◦

POST: 0006
POETRY
11-10-02022

Oakland relies on the creative, generative power of spontaneity.

No doubt.

To keep that spontaneity pure, Oakland insists on never doing what I assume is ❝NEXT❞. Tell Oakland what is ❝NEXT❞, and watch it swerve. See it flip a screeching U-turn at 60mph, on an ATV. It will barely recover from the fishtail spin; it will bust a wheelie and ride away from ❝NEXT❞. Tell Oakland what is ❝NEXT❞, and it will throw the shifter into neutral, get out, and dance next to the car as it rolls away from❝NEXT❞.

No formed plans, no discernable pattern.

Oakland has two states: satisfied stillness and wild action. But this creates the third!

Oakland has three states: satisfied stillness, wild action, and the sweet syrupy tension of living in a place that—at any moment—may ䷝ E R U P T ䷝. Oakland is tantric like that. It circulates its energy. It delays its orgasm until the explosive pleasure promised by release is too delicious to resist.

Oakland doesn’t pull out either. When Oakland erupts, law-and-order is left with an unwanted pregnancy. Law, Oakland hopes you’ll gestate, but it knows you’ll terminate. That baby brings evolution too rapid to be managed, changes too radical to be comfortably carried to term, glory too . . . glorious. Remember the Black Panthers? Remember the Hell’s Angels? This baby will out-dance the hegemony; the status-quo will not survive. Rig the game so you can win it, right Law? Kill it in the crib.

You can’t kill it.

Because Oakland is unapologetic about this first-world chaos. You know those other cities; the ones that cram the flotsam-jetsam unwashed masses into the closet. Open any other city’s closet, and find yourself buried in shit, dirt, and demons.

But dirt is welcome in Oakland. Oakland says, “Look at the grime. Look at the tents and misery. Look at the real-deal lives of those lost in the first world. Why are you scared? Does it hit too close to home? Does it grind against your cozy-wozy story of ☆꧁༒American Exceptionalism༒꧂☆? Are you not one disaster separated from such a fate?”

Oakland, do you smile or cry as you make America look at the results of its late-capitalist, neo-liberal, modernist-buzzword, trickle-down projects? Do you get a twang of pleasure watching folks shudder?

Oakland is the 1994 Toyota 4-Runner I just saw towing a 1981 Ford Fiesta with no license plates and two passengers. When I say “towing”, I mean bound to the back with ropes and canvas straps. When I say “passengers”, I mean two women laughing their asses off; laughing like they just figured out the holy joke of existence that we are all trying to get in on. That’s Oakland. All the stodgy taboos have already been broken, and most don’t mind a bit of danger-fun.

I see that spirit fading a bit. It will be back though, but I gotta go.

14 years ago, I walked into town. Oakland shouted a greeting warm, brash and bewildering; I questioned my ears. It will reverberate in my bones and soul forever. How can kindness be so loud?