Klamath is a lot like Paris

"In penny lane the barber shaves another customer,
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim.
And then the fireman rushes in
From the pouring rain... very strange."

- The Beatles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7O1...rom=PL&index=53

This is where I'm from:
a respectable American downtown:
you can walk down Main Street
and some folks smile, some folks frown,
most do neither:
some are affluent and some are poor
but few by Thai standards

Since I first left 7 years ago,
I've studied Shakespeare in posh Ashland,
smoked pounds of pot
used various psychedelics,
created hundreds of visual art-works,
tried an advertising job in Portland
and quit for spiritual reasons,
championed various political causes,
observed western tourists, coy fish, and iguanas
in Phetchaburi Province, Thailand:
also visited Hua Hin's
surprisingly orderly and humane brothels

I don't discuss that
in the bagel and coffeehouse...
they wouldn't understand...
see, the Buddha is easier on such
than Jehova or the pastors
who teach in the numerous brick churches
with their beautiful stained glass...
at any rate that's all in the past

Behind the Swan Bakery,
there's a finely done statue of a buck
and its metal antlers still shine
finely in the sun

The steps
(imprinted with purple rams heads,
logos of a now closed elementary school)
which I walked up to the school fair
where jealously saw a little blond girl named Brandy
(who I'd later idly think very fair)
win a stuffed white unicorn

Also, there's an impressive granite building
originally a bank
(long before my memory)
now an authentic Mexican restaurant
with a tough but soulful bartender

a young senorita bonita
also works there,
her plump little body
under a Mexican flag dress,
her smile sweet and virtuous
(I've been with well over 30 women
on 3 continents now...
a rather futile feat
which took considerable wit and daring;
but as if by force of location,
I've felt too shy to talk to her)

The cars are a little pushy
at the crosswalks,
not as safe as Ashland,
not the zooming motorcycle jungle of Thailand
(which works better than I understand)

There's a high school and a tennis court
where I with a bleeding blister
and a joyous heart
won my first varsity match;
next to it is the track
where the famed Ian Dobson
zoomed around in bare feet...
otherwise seeming pleasant
and rather ordinary

It's a place of bankers and easy banter,
chopping wood and carrying water,
firemen and shaves,
and a surprising number of Bohemians
(I know a good barber...
since you ask)
There's a patriotically inaccurate vet memorial,
but it bothers me no more than the queen

I left, lived varied lives,
and came back

There's an older man I know...
a lover of Mozart and Beethoven...
or was it Vivaldi?
(it's been so long you see)
who I mean to look up.
He's a policeman as it happens
but we all need bread and beer
and if there's going to be peace
in this anarchic land,
somebody's going to have to keep it with a gun

Hemingway's Jake sagely told
a wander-lusting Robert Cohn
to "begin his life in Paris"
where they were

I think Klamath Falls, Oregon
is a lot like Paris:
my friends here they concur,
and I'm here anyway
as it were