Some mornings I watch ducks with their orange bills, with their summer- ready plumage, with their crested curved necks and wide-wedge wings. Sometimes, most of the time, ducklings are there too: the entire family, all of them tucking into the grass, avoiding the gusts of wind that fill the breathable North Oakland space. The ducklings [...]

It is approximately . . . steps from (1) my bedroom to K’s bedroom. Outside the green door of my green apartment building on Haight Street, the street sleeps. It is Tuesday night. Warm. Whenever I count my steps, I never stare at the ground and my left foot always advances onto odd numbers, my [...]

The red chair on our back porch is growing fungus. The cracked vinyl showcases layers of mold and rot along the exposed white cushion, but it’s more than that.
That chair, I think to myself, looks like it has a tumor.
But it’s not a tumor, I see, after leaning in and squinting to make out the [...]

I live in the Avenues’ precipitous cold gray stucco desert, but more provocative territories are only a bike ride away. Coasting down the Panhandle on a Sunday morning, I pass a family inflating birthday balloons as their little barbeque sends serene, familial smoke signals up among the craggy dignified branches. Tai chi adherents intently practice [...]

After two years of domestic struggle, my girlfriend kicked me out. I was heartbroken, in the way that heartbreak makes me manic and irrational. I had also been without sex for four months, and was completely randy and on the rebound.
Sheila, the bass player from my old band, told me she was having a Thanksgiving [...]

Last night I had a client in earshot of San Francisco’s football stadium, Jell-O Memorial Stadium or what the fuck ever it’s called these days. This city is run by whores. The Raiders were playing the 49ers and the hotel parking lot was full. I’d seen this man before. He’s the rare client who smokes [...]

The world may have given up on him, but I haven’t.
Why on earth should I care what might have happened to him?  Callous as it may sound, so what if the cretin is six feet under, as most suspect he probably is? The ideal epitaph for him would read: “Serves him right.” Hey, you get [...]

Author’s Note: The following is an abridged version of the original script for Jenni Olson’s contemplative San Francisco landscape film, The Joy of Life. For optimum enjoyment, please pause and take a deep breath at each *.
I arrange to meet this girl Grace at the bookstore.  She finds me with All Quiet on the Western [...]

Helen
Some mornings there’s a wonderful quality to the light in the garden out back, especially after a rain. It’s not a large garden – none of the back yards out here are that big – but when I sit in the kitchen and look out the windows, I can imagine that it’s something tremendous that [...]

Jack Hirschman is a poet, painter, and activist with dozens of books of poetry under his belt and many hundreds of translations. His most recent book, Front Lines, was published by City Lights in 2002. In January 2006, Hirschman became San Francisco’s fourth Poet Laureate.
Do you think you came to poetry through politics, or the [...]