Life in the Fog: some notes on Arcata

A special sort of sadness can be found here.

All day gray reflects from pothole puddles on 11th.
Sea breeze smells of Pacific end-of-the-land whatnow?ness
dabbed on earthen fern&redwood funk.
Molding walls, borderline madness, and
streets entirely vacant, save the evening sojourn
of a single
stray
cat.

Downtown nightlife inevitably evokes
the purest of melancholia.
Half-retarded frat dropouts and weirds
of every variety plague dance floors with
brutish, apelike courting rituals.
Some women, the weak ones,
succumb.

I drink alone and watch all the meaninglessness
passing me by.

Bicycling across town in a mist, a sense of absolute
aloneness sprouts in the chest like a cool
metallic cactus.
Faces blur and everyone a stranger.
Like most of the town, I am broke, bored,
and without a place to go on this
dreary, rain soaked Sunday.

Anything can manifest here,
if you try.
Trouble is,
I seem to have forgotten how.