Bin Ramke

Under the heading: maybe San Francisco is not completely dead yet (at least culturally). Last night by invitation of some dear friends, Barb and I ventured into the city for our debut trip to Black Cat. A jazz club set in the heart of the ever-poor, ever-rank Tenderloin, Black Cat was opened some six years ago (where the hell have I been?) by restaurateur and music freak Fritz Quattlebaum.

A visit to the shores of lullabies, So far from here, so very far away, A floor of sand, it doesn't matter where, And overhead a water-ceiling sways; A shell is summoned to materialize— The holy life, a spiral, hushed and pure, Complete unto itself—a spiral shell Is summoned from a substratum of wonder: And all is well now, hush now, close your eyes, Around a primal, ragged nucleus Accumulated layers crystallize: An embryonic seashell pulls itself Through being-portals intricately placed In...

Lucretius loved Epicurus, knew the world through him; his meaning was clear: love as a way of knowing, of assuming the known. To know is to narrate. People die trying to tell what it was like there then. Others die of not trying. The form of this telling is, for example, a trellis. A growth controlled unpredictable within measure. Trellis. Tri licium. three threads. The weaver knows through the fingers the way worlds hold together. Basket makers.