Luddite at Large

We had gathered to discuss the Digital Experience—
thousands in attendance, millions changing hands,
executives and futurists looking for the Next Big Thing
luminescing in the pockets of tomorrow.
There is only so much of this banter one can bear,
the scratchy suits and the glossy shoes,
the crumpled napkins and polite exchange
of business cards at lunch. And so I—
reliable scribe of the e-business elite—
I turned off my phone and headed north.
I walked through China Town and up Telegraph Hill.
I circled the Embarcadero and descended into North Beach,
savoring the sights and sounds of the city at night.
The experience I sought can’t be parsed by programmers
or conveyed via satellite. It doesn’t flash its arrival with a banner or buzz.
It lurks in the laughter of strangers and the bustle of bartenders.
It gains momentum with the suspicion of the corner grocer
and finds flavor in the imploring look of the dirty kid with a guitar.

I found myself among the hallowed stacks of an iconic bookstore:
City Lights, cultural beacon of another age.
Enlivened by the rustle of paper and the smell of fresh ink,
captivated by the fading black and white photos
lining the stairwell, I realized that I was not alone.
My companions were all around me,
their chorus now rising from the pub across the alley,
a song begun by the anarchists of yore.
Dylan and Ginsberg, Robertson and McClure—
I ducked into their realm, toasted their insurgency,
laughed with their girls and cheered for their team.
Normally the shy watcher in the corner booth,
I embraced the warm present on a naughahyde stool,
elbow to elbow with years of yearning and decades of dreams.
I relegated my reticence to the bottom of a glass,
and another, and a third, inhibition sliding effortlessly
down the crystal slope of the hour.
I craved total immersion, an escape into the mundane. 

Two words I scrawled on the crumbling brickwork
before I tumbled into a cab hours later,
beat up like King Marchand after a dose of mother’s milk.
The bookstore was closed. The guitar player was gone,
the last echoes of his Siren’s song reverberating
faintly off the lamp-lit walls.
And I thought I could imagine,
through the foggy blur of the dying light,
that my mantra, smeared with a stubby pencil
still sticky with the night’s wet reverie,
might just blend with Dylan’s own.

Here Now.