Broke-Ass Poets: Curt Hopkins

We like poetry (we swear) and we’re making space for it, too. Today’s Broke-Ass poet is local author and “busy, somewhat overfed crepuscular passerine,” Curt Hopkins.

III. The paranoid dead

Fox Plaza Apartments, Market Street, San Francisco.

From the broken soil spirits whisper,
Goth and Magothy are the kings of the Unclean Nations.
The dead are the commissioners of discord,
Who tend the Dolorosa’s somber stations.

We change the glyphs of buildings, trees, and streets.
We change the very languages we speak
To argue with the púca and ifrit,
To say the same old things in brand new speech.

The city’s story’s told in palimpsest,
So those who only know one alphabet
Are destined to remain inhabitants.
Only citizens speak the myriad tongues of the dead.

Once a year the living and deceased
Meet to dance and dine on Mason Street.

I. Calafia

From the Mark Hopkins Hotel, Nob Hill, San Francisco.

The presence of a man who isn’t dead,
But should be, adds a spice to every hour
That he lives through, waking in his watery bed
To stride unhoused through fires that devour.

You often open up around a twister,
And make confession to its priestly chaos,
To pray for peace inside a backyard minster
And for the first time gaze upon her face.

Calafia, grace of alternates:
Rain’s a prayer to a foreign god,
The waterfall a silver coat that’s draped
Across the southern shoulder of the world.

Remember l’Inconnue de la Seine:
Anyone who saves a life saves mine.

Curt Hopkins is the guy who is color from the sky who is smoke from the fire who is shame on him. He lives in San Francisco with the same woman he lived in a cave in Spain with.

Find more of Curt’s work here.

To be our next Broke-Ass poet, email jake@brokeassstuart.com