Safeway

His voice is a dog fight

on the beverage aisle.

The security guy,

interrupts the text

he's writing to his lady,

tries to calm him.

Unsuccessfully.

the shabby guy

slams a twenty ounce

plastic Pepsi bottle

to the floor.

The pressure bursts

the seal of the cap

and the escaping jet of soda

spins the bottle like a pinwheel.

A small group of seniors

down from Chinatown

gather by the frozen vegetable case

whisper in Cantonese behind their hands

and watch the unfolding drama.

The store manager

comes out from the stockroom

to size up the situation

and tells the would be

Pepsi purchaser

to get out of his store.

The guy is growling

something about uranium

and anuses and the Gulf War.

Dumps a pillow case

filled with his clothes,

two dog-eared books,

and a roll of toilet paper

into the sticky puddle.

Happy? Are you happy now,

you son of a bitch?

I fought a war for you.

For this?

The store manager yells

get out of my store

and don't ever come back.

The guy stomps out of the store

leaving all his stuff behind.

The manager prods the pile

on the floor with the toe of his shoe

tells a stocker who has come over

from the produce section

to clean up the mess.

The books and clothes

and toilet paper go into

a hefty bag (on sale in aisle 6)

and after all the Pepsi is mopped up,

he puts out a yellow warning cone:

Caution - Wet Floor

Ant Farms

Hundreds of them.

no. thousands.

every ten feet or so.

Ants erupting

from the gap between

the sidewalk and the curb 

on Avenue B.

A mass evacuation,

some alert passed

from nest to nest?

mobilized for battle

or immanent disaster?

The little black ones

that mom and her sisters

called sugar ants.

Maybe because

how if you left out

anything sweet,

a couple bites of berry pie

on the counter.

or missed some spilled

RC Cola on the floor,

in the morning it would be

crawling with a crew of ants

hauling bits in a long caravan

to some crevice

under the cupboard

or the stove.

sugar ants sure don't

smell sweet when you

rub them off your arm.

they smell like some

kind of bitter mineral.

I can bring it to mind

right now.

if you had an invasion

in the the house

it was a pestilence.

but Uncle Milton's Ant Farms

sold millions as a novelty.

You bought the slim

clear plastic case

with the silhouettes

of a barn and a silo

farm animals,

some sand to fill it

and a certificate to

mail to Uncle Milton

to get your ants.

Put them in the farm

and watch them build

their tunnels. Feed them

sugar water and tiny bits

of fruit. A few weeks or

months later they all died.

It's only natural, the lifespan

of harvester ants is brief.

Then the farm sat on a shelf

gathering dust unless you

were as fascinated by ants

as Edmund O. Wilson.

There were other kinds

of ants on grandpa's farm

down in the San Joaquin Valley.

The little red ones.

The ones who bite.

The ones who swarmed your feet

if you weren't careful

playing out in the melon field

or the barnyard.

I heard about a new kind of ant problem

down along the Gulf Coast

a species that is attracted to

electronic equipment.

Like transformers. Air conditioners.

Televisions. Laptops. Cell Phones.

They're called Crazy Ants.

Invaders from Brazil and Argentina.

Could become a real serious thing.

Suppose you're tapping and clicking

away on your favorite social media,

and a mob of crazy social insects

attracted by the magnetic field

in your router or you cable box

get electrocuted and short circuit

your set up. No tv or internet.

No air conditioning. If they

got into your home circuits

and the refrigerator shut off,

no ice tea and your Bud Light

would be warm. 

What would the consequences be,

if these socialistic invaders seeking sweets

commandeered millions of cell phones!

cut off all the tweets from reaching

a swath from Tulsa to Pensacola?
Marched on Sherman's path
from Atlanta to Savannah?

Might have to build a wall.

Round them up

and put them in Ant Farms.

And make Brazil and Argentina

pay for it. I, for one, plan to boycott

the tango and and the samba.

Hot days on the way

He was standing under the bus shelter.

humpty dumpty belly, red warriors cap,

skinny legs sticking out of cargo shorts

feet shod in pale beige workboots.

A tall can of beer sitting on the ground

and some song I didn't recognize

playing on his phone.

He says, you know women,

they forgive but they never forget,

you know what I'm saying?

You look old enough to know.

I'm stayin' at my sister's, she's cool

but my wife, I was married for ten years

but we was together longer than that.

and when it's time to go, it's time to go

but I still needed my stuff, you know my clothes,

my car, somebody else was driving it,

that ain't cool. When I was young

I probably would have done something stupid.

I was born and raised in the Mission,

I was a old school stick-up guy, I did my time

at San Quentin and I'm through with that.

I got a job backing up trucks at Parc 55,

my brother's a supervisor there

and I get twenty bucks an hour.

So I got my money and my credit score

is 640. That's good, right? that's really good.

So I've been staying at my sister's

for a couple of weeks and I got my drink.

She threw me a birthday party, I just turned fifty.

How'd I get so old? You been

around the block, so you know what I'm sayin.

Sometimes you just got to talk to somebody

somebody you don't know, because if you

talk to people who know you they bring up

old stuff and I'm through with all that.

Well here's your bus, I'm not taking the bus.

Five of us get on the bus and I find a seat,

get out out my book and start to read.

At the next bus stop, a young guy gets on

and starts to walk towards the back.

The bus driver tells him he needs to pay.

He slides a couple dollars into the machine.

Asks for a transfer.

Bus driver says, it's two fifty,

I'm not giving you a transfer until you

pay up fifty cents.

The guy says he put in tres.

Driver says no you put in dos.

Somebody in the back of the bus calls out

He put in three. Driver says no he didn't

and I'm not talking to you.

Back of the bus guy says

He put in three, why don't you do your job.

Drivers says, one more comment

and I'm going to put this bus out of service.

I don't care if it's six thirty in the morning.

Everybody shuts up.

The fifty cents remains missing in action.

So does the transfer.

We sail onto the bridge.

The traffic is light and fast

on this early sun-spiked Friday morning.

At the last stoplight before we reach

the Transbay Terminal, a full dress

Harley Superglide, with hard shell

saddlebags, a windshield and a

big sound system is playing

an old James Brown song: The Big Payback.

It's loud enough to be heard for blocks.

And it sounds so good. I can't sit still.

Like that other old J.B. song says,

 "I got ants in my pants and I need to dance."

I can't help but think that R&B has never been

anywhere near as good as J.B.

Up on Market, the morning maintenance woman

is disinfecting and hosing down the plaza

between Peet's and Wells Fargo. Just like

every morning before seven.

A truck on Fremont is unloading kegs

at Harringtons, the doorway sleepers

are waking up, a guy sitting on a sleeping bag

with all his stuff piled around him on the sidewalk

is buttering the pancakes of his MacDonalds

breakfast special.

Every street has bodies sprawled

under blankets or tarps, and

women garbed in shorts

and stylish sports gear

with tunes plugged in their ears

jog past the soggy sandwich buns

tossed in the alley and and the bums

now bathed by the sun's low rays

that find their way up the canyons

of the streets.

The tv weatherman said today

the heat is on it's way.

The Good Shepherd

Every town and city

has a heart.

Podunk diner

or courthouse square,

some center where

the energy congeals.

If you have a message

to proclaim, that's where

you need to go.

The crossroad in San Francisco

is Powell and Market

where cable cars turn around

and the BART riders

emerge from underground.

So on this fine June day,

I tucked my Bible and

my water bottle in my pack

and looked for the best spot

to stand.

A big line waiting to ride

the cable car was stretched up

Powell and the homeless

and the hustlers leaned against

the low wall around the pit

of the BART station entrance.

Across from the would be riders

looked like the best place to start,

captive audience, you know?

Over the years,

the most important thing I've found

is to choose the right piece of scripture,

something that connects with people

on the very day you speak.

-if you want them to hear you.

if you want to give a message

that cuts through the noise.

So I chose the story of the good shepherd

from the gospel of John, chapter 10.

"Good people, I have something I'd like

to share with you today. Yes you, all of you,

bless you on this fine summer day.

It's a story from the Bible which

I ask you to consider, especially today.

I think you'll see why.

There are a lot of shepherds in the bible, right?

That's not too surprising. After all that's how

a lot the people of the time supported themselves,

with their flocks. For food and clothing.

Even to this day, there are many shepherds

in that land.

So when Jesus spoke to the Pharisees

they knew what he meant. When he said that

he was the good shepherd, the one who lays down

his life for the sheep. And when he warned them about

the hired hand who is a not a good shepherd,

who runs away when the wolves and thieves come

because the hired hand cares only

for the money he can make from the flock.

You see where I'm going with this, right?

We hear claims from high places,

the very highest places in our land

from our leader, our hired hand

that only he can protect us from the wolves.

But his speech is filled with lies

and he seeks to fill his pockets

with profits from us, his flock.

We're getting fleeced, you know what I mean?

But Jesus told the Pharisees that he was the gate

and that his sheep would know his voice

and follow him. How do you think they

would know his voice? Was it sweet

as a dove cooing in the olive tree?

Did he speak with the majesty of a king?

I think not. It was the completeness

of his love. And his promise to give up

his life for them. And he did.

But his love went beyond the flock

gathered there to hear him, he said that

there were other flocks not present

who he would gather

and bring with him through the gate.

Some of you probably recognize

that his promise was to live with him

in eternal life. But what of the others,

the flocks ungathered? As some of us are not?

I don't deceive myself, that I'm gonna

bring you into the fold today, but I still

have a gift for you, one that reaches

beyond the ashes or the grave

where we all eventually find

our respite from this world.

And that is simply this:

what persists after we have left?

Love. In the hearts of our families

and friends. And for some of us,

far out into the world.

like the stone tossed into the lake

sending ripples to the farthest shore. Love.

For all the flocks in all this world.

Like the good shepherd.

So I caution you, beware of the hired hand

the shepherd who seeks benefit solely for himself

and confines his concern for his flock only as long

as it profits him and burnishes his name.

and even then he will abandon them

to wolves and thieves.

God bless you, and enjoy this day.

The cable car rolled down Powell

and the people waiting drew out their tickets,

some resumed looking at their phones

and a few aimed their cameras at me,

to memorialize this San Francisco side walk curiosity.

The homeless sitting on the sidewalk

nudged their cups a little closer to the crowd

and one young woman put her hand

to her lips and blew me a kiss.

They climbed onto the cable car,

with excited eyes and smiles

and as it began it's journey over Nob Hill

to Fisherman's Wharf.

Some of them waved goodbye.

I opened my water bottle

and refreshed my throat

and waited for the next line to form.