Musings on the Old Abalone Song
“In Monterey the squid they say
is tender as baloney.
But here I’ll pound a little round
of tough old abalone.”
George Sterling was Bohemian,
bright leader of a clique
that ran the San Francisco scene
with literature and art.
“Some stick to biz, some flirt with Liz
down on the sands of Coney.
But we, by hell, stay in Carmel
and beat our abalone.”
Sterling’s verse caused such a stir
his buddy Ambrose Bierce,
a writer with connections fed
his work to Cosmopolitan.
Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly and Pushcart Prizenominee. His poetry and interviews have appeared widely in literary journals internationally,including Nimrod, Portland Review, Mandala Journal, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg,Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Boston Poetry Magazine, and Poetry Quarterly. He haspublished a travel book, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems.
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