 His novel along the border lies won the pen award His spoken word poem Brown Dreams has been viewed on YouTube a hundred thousand times. Please welcome Paul S. Boyd When I was nine years old My mother decided to marry a man with a red beard Abuelo Enrique said Never trust a man with a beard. He could be hiding something Cortez had a beard and you remember what happened to Cuauhtemoc, don't you? I kept looking for signs of insincerity, but only found my stepfather's Viking grin Was a staple of his old-time personality. He loved drinking Jack Daniels Tooling around on his 1946 Roadster more than me or my mother Four years later, we left the trim suburbs for a two-bedroom apartment Chef Boyd Rd and coin laundry on Sunday. I never asked my mother why we gave up financial security a Chance at a nuclear family shit a house with two stories. I had a feeling that some Some prophecies are self-fulfilling. I guess my mother found out the ugly truth about the bearded Viking But decided to let me figure out what type of a man I would become what I choose to grow a beard or not My own father was a phantom a wannabe philosopher Who only called when he was inspired? He wrote dense letters packed like cigarettes with epistemology that burned my image of a man into an ashtray He was not an Indian, but he still couldn't grow a beard or a bank account to save his life One day your acquaintances might only be the people who serve you drinks You will smell like old newspaper and damp corduroy You will only be held to account by the poetic solitudes of your fatherless insecurities Except now you have a son He wants to walk More like run hallway to the door back and forth, but he is not yet one so his kneecaps are still developing So he falls and bangs his head on the hardwood floor Howling at the pain and the fright of falling as if I could fool him out of his tears My son is looking at me like I'm a bully something inside me tells me he's right You see I could be gone gone Looking to find myself The man I was supposed to be gone looking out for number one Gone looking for God gone to write my solitary adventure corner stack of dog-eared books Pot of cold coffee Cigarette smoke and sandwich meat. Yeah, I could grow a beard Tell myself that this is what sacrifice and personal freedom really look like but I want my son To trust the traits I carry. I want to pick him up from that howling place I Want him to sympathize and Understand what dignity in the place of pride what? Responsibility in the place of attitude. What a macho really looks like so then I kiss his hands and I kiss his knees And I kiss his feet So he knows men Can be trusted not to leave To my father showed up one night To pick me up from my grandmother's house Take me to the drive-in movie It was a humid summer evening alcohol My father's car crackled over the gravel lot of the drive-in we parked next to the short pole with a gray metal speaker attached My father's thick pale wrist reaches through the half-rolled window Cigarette dangling from his lips a beer between his legs Unlatches the speaker from the pole Attaches it to the driver's side window My father takes a sip of his mykolobe and the movie sparks to life sound of fighting fills the car and Bruce Lee appears on the screen battling Kung Fu Challengers and corrupt Chinese masters enter the dragon The first movie I saw with bloody violence and naked women the first movie I Saw with my father. I was seven years old I hadn't seen him in a couple years. So I didn't say much the entire night Hardly moved in my seat never asked for candy or popcorn or soda Not because I was afraid to ask my father, but because the movie was so intense My experience riveted by Bruce Lee the man in the car next to me emanating some power in his seat My father the movie my father the man my father the myth my father the focus the swagger The dance the speedy power. I couldn't peel my eyes for two hours And my father just sipped his beer He smoked his cigarette He cackled every once in a while what a badass Bruce Lee was When it's over my father drives me back to my grandparents house. It's late and just before he drops me off. He asked me What'd you think of the movie? I loved it Don't tell your mom She might get mad at me She'd never take you to see a movie like that So I told her he took me to see the breath the Bruce Lee movie anyway So typical your father to do that. She said I won't forgive him for taking a seven-year-old to an all-rated movie It's one of the greatest examples of character. He ever gave me the flying fists the sweet science the long stare the violent dance the labyrinth of mirrors the Self-like water flow the game inside the game the teacher and the pupil the philosophy What was silent in the father? Speaks in the Sun Didn't I feel unloved already? Before I knew what love Didn't I feel unloved already? Before I knew what love Love no one likes to deal with the broken heart Rather shoot yourself sometimes knowing it's gone broken from the inside family is broken from the inside Not what you dreamed it would be Children won't see you in bed together anymore. No anticipated family vacations no long Anniversary example no family heirlooms to pass down to grandchildren no family photos Divorce is one child's crisis means the other is either the reason or must be part of the solution come together now like forced interdependence Single parenting feels like raising a ghost family sometimes not what you dreamed it would be Broken from the inside out like someone poked a tiny hole in your balloon from the inside out a slow deflation a slow spinning chamber a slow death and you will cry No one likes to deal with the broken heart Ready to attach yourself to any pretty woman with a kind voice Someone to sleep on the cold side of the bed and cradle your broken dreams at her breast the ghost in you Invites her embrace the ghost in you invites her embrace La Giorona baptizes you in tears because she also carries old wounds Nobody is clean and free of heartbreak. Nobody escapes the past isn't everybody Wounded isn't every relationship an effect of the one before Didn't my father leave me didn't he break my heart first? Didn't I feel unloved already? Before I knew what love What didn't I feel unloved already for I knew what love love No one likes to deal With a broken heart leaving my children with their mother Whenever I go out of town is a stress. I Expect any minute to receive a call Your daughter won't stop crying your son is sick. I can't handle it I can't do this on my own So though I earn a living on the road in the theater as a writer a performer I have children whose safety is compromised by my absence When the mother struggles to take care of them I Had doubts about choosing to be a professional artist and a father when she told me the way I was trying to make money hurt my ability to take care of my family. I should find a new line of work You're not good enough. She said Find a real job with insurance And just writing your spare time What could I say? But you won't have much spare time because I'm going to Puerto Rico for six weeks On vacation and I'm leaving you with the kids Sorry, but I had to use your credit card to buy the ticket I'll leave next month We still be My empire of fog crowned hills Through webs of electric munilines that tang of fills roasted coffee grinds Scorched breath of San Francisco poets transmits passion of Ginsberg Kaufman, de Prima devotion of its exotics its unions, legacy of Vargas Herrera Cervantes its rituals and gangster politics Its rituals and gangster politics where a dancer can steal your heart and hold it for ransom in a gallery named crucible steel This muse this muse this muse Not just an obsession. It's a blood oath to embrace carnaval where even the most Straight laced will cross dress for a sake of adventure. This is San Francisco's heartbeat This is San Francisco's heartbeat my homie's house burned down my homie's house burned down We read poetry in the ashes my homie's house burned down and we read poetry in the ashes We raised some cash and its spirits with bottles of tequila and coronas Salted with tears to quench harsh throats. We told jokes We told jokes and marcus played hard bebop and my homie was wailing for his lost dog and the smoke of a broken pilot light induced inferno poetry heals poetry heals and the bebop revives poetry heals and the bebop revives We never we never we never go softly into that dark night This is san francisco's heartbeat. This is san francisco's heartbeat. They say blacks and mexicans don't belong anymore They say they say can't afford to keep a family in a decent size home anymore But muni drivers are black and latino teachers got white kids speaking spanish At least until chicano becomes a four letter word If you peel if you peel the flyers from the telephone poles, you'll find broadsides You'll find broadsides protesting gentrification of the why you're better 19 21 year olds or 2019 year olds my broadsides were bilingual when it was illegal They don't know how to stop this flow a poetry evangelist with contraband mexican cigarettes by the pound Yo, soy delicado. Yo, soy delicado. We liberated public space con queso con el tambor y el chequere con bass and saxophone with jimmy beala and david molina and howard wiley and marcus shelby and jenny lim and redessa jones and redessa jones and redessa jones and bourbon and rum and smoke And drum with bourbon and rum and smoke and drum and we took money crudo to the tool shed and we made Relan pago negro. That's black lightning red lan pago negro. This is san francisco's heartbeat. This is san francisco's heartbeat It's the poets. It's the poets. It's the poets. It's the poets. It's the poets It's the crazy drunk loud ass poets from the mission the film or the bay view north beach hunter's point People always want to know people always want to know what's so good about san francisco I wasn't born here, but I ain't no tourist I wasn't born here, but I ain't no tourist And I know my way around Broke so many hearts But keep coming back for more We speak easy at bruno's in the corner of the bar Her style latin swing with strapless dress and high heels her brown skin so beautiful want her to wear my ring Represent her swagger with mestizo babies in a sling We jazz fest in north beach with tapas on the grass We festival in stern grove. We carnival. We baker beach our babies growing so fast And we like to show them off On facebook and twitter And linkedin and google plus bay area got them all San francisco is our heart Many come to claim a throne many move to oakland Home is where I'm loved the most So rise san francisco like trolley train over pacific heights We look to you for inspiration when life is about struggle you make it possible to desire Something different you make it possible to believe you make it possible to believe because we still believe yet We still believe yet. We still believe yet. We still be yet. We still be the heart beat of san francisco Paul s flores. Thanks, man