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      February 23, 2017A Town of Mirrors and Quaking Forty-FoursRichard Manly Heiman

      Image: “Days In San Francisco #1, 1984” by Harry Wilson. “A Town of Mirrors and Quaking Forty-Fours” was written by Richard Manly Heiman for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2017, and selected by Wilson as the Artist’s Choice winner.
      Tomorrows whirl along, they promenade
      like pages ripped from too-brief years, before
      their soft-shoe asphalt syncopations fade
      down Geary to the Van Ness corridor.
       
      The beats in Fillmore boom-boom, saxophones
      uncurl and snake around a fog of nights.
      And yesterdays? Don’t think about them—gone.
      Like endless hours spent browsing City Lights.
       
      Once, hungry fire raged through the Tenderloin.
      The dead shipped south to Colma, out of sight.
      Once, bitter Tong-blood soaked the urban groin,
      and Carol’s boobs glared proud in neon light.
       
      But now who thinks of Sutro’s on the sand,
      or Playland at the Beach, or Winterland?

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the artist, Harry Wilson

      “Richard triggered enough of the city that I knew, experienced, and loved. And of course it was also a time that I returned to through his poem. It is a different city now, but I keep going back anyway. So it was his focus on the city that did it. There were other poets that made the choice difficult, though—thanks to Judy Kaber and Loretta Walker, and their more personal takes.”

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