San Francisco

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︎︎︎ Riska Seval

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︎ Nov 25, 2025

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Billboard #1 said
        SOFTWARE ATE THE WORLD. NOW WHAT?
   
            And I thought of Barry Plunker Adams, Peter Coyote,
                            Shiva, Vishnu, and Don Quixote

    And I remembered to “writhe upon my page,
              In a veritable rage
              Of adversity” and
   
    To remember the optimism of disruption,
           A still-life startup eruption.

    If this city had a billboard, it would say
            “Live fast die young. WELCOME TO THE BAY”


Billboard #2 said
                            THE DATA IS IN: LOVE WINS

And I remembered at the bottom of Hippie Hill:

            A chalk-made green ichthys
                drawn on the inside of a pink heart.
   
            A man, his wife and her dog
                whose name was ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’

        He had a pastry bag between his teeth,
                And a big, smug good-boy smile.

        The man held his wife’s coat,
                And the dog’s leash, and her purse while

        She bent down to touch the ground,
                Got back up and said, “The earth is still turning.”

        Then the couple sat on a bench,
               She said out loud, while google searching

        “Hard Techno SF raves tonight”
                And her husband goes “You can’t find it online.”

        Then, right before they took turns biting into a rainbow gummy,
        she asked, “How about now? Is it the right time?”


At 6pm the sun faded, and
                        Hippie Hill, their pupils, and the billboards
                        All turned black.