There is a woman,
Covered entirely in fur,
Staring at me as I skip on by.
She's been there for, 10, 20, 40 years,
Watching.
Watching her corner parks turn into gas stations
And watching me walk.
And sometimes I stop.
And I stare.
And it takes everything in my body not to throw a brick through the window and take her for my wall.
And I wonder
How on earth is she still there
Beautiful
Poised
With nothing but dust covering her smile.
Because I can't be the first person to have wanted her like that.
I look.
Like a lost museum patron.
And then I keep walking.
Because most things
And all people
Are meant to stay beautiful.
And untouched.
Unless they ask you.
Or you own it.

I live in Chemical Valley.
It sounds horrible:
Better you than me.
Perhaps.
I grew up here,
Where the southern sky burns
Bloodstone red,
Mixing colours with the evening suns.
The St. Clair carries Huron's ghostly horns
Past the flaring refineries,
To Detroit's waters.
We have stop signs
And other amenities
Small cities are proud to maintain.
I heard the housing market
Is sustained on the divorce rate,
And not the petro-chemical industry;
We're closing another high school next year;
And there was a gruesome woodlot-****/******
Last week on the Reserve.
Maniacs living out some sick web-site.
But the soccer pitches are full,
And our Mayor is the longest serving one in Canada.
Just around the corner
(everything is just around the corner),
Our flag flies over the bones of our second Prime Minister,
(he's from Edinburgh, Scotland);
I've walked a good stretch of the fifty miles
Of beach we have running north,
Past cottages, parks, camps, etc.
We've way too many ***-holes;
And for many years,
We were featured on the ten dollar bill.

But the new houses!
Who is buying them as we move eastward,
Away from the lake and river?
Newly minted single moms;
Rejected men.
We lived in one house,
Once,
One house.
We now occupy five.
Two of which
Are too far away
From Chemical Valley.

I lost myself once upon a time
in a place that was only whispered to me in dreams.
Where the fog is thick and threads through the seams
of street lights and street cars with *** fights and brillo bars.  
I tell you I lost myself on the tongue of insanity
who swallowed my soul to feed its humanity.
I lost myself
in a city that found me;

San Francisco, 2013

Let me extend two points like two bridges
that begin in separate places but lead to the same thing.
I’m talking the people in both hands with countless art in between.

The people, the people, the people.
What can’t be said about the near million faces
sleeping on warm pillows or cold stones,
wearing top hats or traffic cones
because not every night are people thriving.
But they’re still surviving, getting busy living or getting busy dying.
In their eyes are stories being told
once you wipe those windows into their souls, deep.
You see it all,
Just like every star in the fall when the sun goes to sleep.
I gave a homeless man a dollar who gave it to another homeless man who then gave it back to me
Like we were passing a love note that said, “You need this more than me.”
So which of us was the one without the home?

Home I soon found in the art of every step taken,
one foot in front of the next.
I can’t walk through that city discounting the side effects.
I was drunk,
but not from bottles or cans
I was drunk from the hands
that told tales with graffiti art to camera pans.
and countless other melodies
massaging bricks into the landmarks that spanned.
Culture sprinkling up and down the hills and between the cracks
Painting colors in the sky as the rainbows stacked,
Finding pots of gold by merely lifting my eye lids back.

There is so much to say about this city in the bay,
that is held in place by the people of race
and the vessels of art that encompass in its space
like stories and attitude,
survival and gratitude,
muse and expression
in delight or depression.

I tell you I lost myself in that city.
But I know now that being lost is sometimes the only way to be truly found.

Couple to help me fall asleep
Couple to make me less socially awkward
Couple because it's something to pass the time
To help unwind

Loud people yelling in kingsgate
Then the faint stare of nighttime noises
Dog chains, house keys
Then nothing

City silence
Ambient sounds
Quarter to one
Bikes are closer than the cars

Smoking my last cigarette
The city bows out
A well oiled machine
Inhale, exhale now

Last night I closed my eyes
And walked through the abandoned city
Where people hide behind the windows
With closed eyes
Imagining someone’s walking by

In a city that never sleeps
At 1am the trains have stopped
But jeepney engines roar
You can see a few dressed in ragged
Shouting, sometimes laughing
Their dark skin burnt
By stinging rays of reality
At most times you will see a few going through
Garbage bags and bins for salvation
Just like how they go through
The bulks and ******* of everyday life
At 1am the most interesting people come out
Friends, lovers on a rendezvous
Waiting in line
Hungry
A 68-year old man
Ready to clean up and opens doors for everybody
A teenage girl sitting
Plain bored and disinterested
Until a much older man comes up
Asked a few questions
Then left together
Kids hitching on maddened wheels
Jump off and ask for alms
Ready to grab whatever catches their attention
Like how they hold on to questions
Which their parents fail to answer
At 1am you will see
Street lights and dark alleys
Stop lights blinking red to green then orange
And back to red again
People cross the streets
Cautious, guarded against shadows
Lurking on the darkest corners of the streets
At 1am you will see
The ****** and the blessed
The ill-fated and the comfortable
Mix up on the streets
You may decide to
Go on watching
Or
Put your cigarette out
And call it a day
But for people alive at 1am
Life goes on
In a city that never sleeps

-Malaya Sanchez

Burning branch lit aflame, no dove can rest and it is a shame.

When peace needs rest and the city is burning, her heart grows tired and rest now yearning.

A safe place, lovers in a field, where the dove does rest and needs no shield.

Beside the Rhine where all is well, let me stay, let me dwell.

But calling back that world on fire, more knowledge he said, you do require.

when I sit in bed listening to the sounds of the city outside my window
I feel like I owe it a poem, creativity, something beautiful
to eternalize it's beauty in someway
the sounds of cars speeding through the bridge at 3:34am
souls repelled and pulled by the never-ending enigma that is the city
the heels of woman clacking across the cement, finding their ways home
the white noise in the rare moment that silence invades
this all silently screams to me, "paint me like a French girl"
I'm a muse, waiting to be picked upon
and nothing will ever be good enough