Vistas & Byways - Spring 2022
  • CONTENTS
    • IN THIS ISSUE
    • Fiction
    • Nonfiction
    • Poetry
    • Bay Area Stew
    • Inside OLLI
    • Photo Essays
  • ABOUT US
  • CONTRIBUTORS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ARCHIVES
    • Fall 2021
    • Spring 2021
    • Fall 2020
    • Spring 2020
    • Fall 2019
    • Spring 2019
    • Fall 2018
    • Spring 2018
    • Fall 2017
    • Spring 2016
    • Fall 2015

​POETRY  -  
     
Lucky/Unlucky?

                                                                                    Life in the desert is all I've ever known   -    Weebly.com  
Vertical Divider

Happy Hour
(1962)

by Steve Surryhne 

If it wasn't for bad luck and trouble,
     I wouldn't have no luck at all.
​

                         --Albert King, Born Under a Bad Sign
​​Near Bishop and Mono Lake,
the Alpine Lakes and Lodge.
Summer evening in the bar.
 
In the bubbling neon land 
                               of skyblue waters,
the cowboy,
                   having had a few too many,
got up from his barstool:
                                     
                               “I was born in Winnemucca Nevada
where I grew up and went to school.
Life in the desert is all I've ever known.
When I was old enough, I joined the Navy
to see the world! And where did they send me?
I wound up stationed at the fucking
Naval Meteorological Observatory
In—Carson City Nevada!
                               So I split,
I'm AWOL from the Navy,
                               and I don't give a shit!”
 
We all applauded this and bought him another round.
Picture
​Steve Surryhne was an Associate Lecturer in English Literature at San Francisco State University from 1993-2012. He is currently semi-retired and has recently returned to writing poetry. A native of San Francisco, he was a baby-beat in the sixties, knew some of the beat poets and is now a neo-beat. In his alternate career, he worked in Community Mental Health in San Francisco from 1979-2012. He took first place in the Jack Kerouac Poetry contest in 2015 and has published in The Blue Moon Review and Interpretations. He is currently working on a project with a photographer friend on poem-texts and photos. 
Vertical Divider
Vertical Divider

    WE WELCOME COMMENTS

Submit
Fiction
Bay Area Stew
Nonfiction
Inside OLLI
POETRY
Photo Essays
Picture
Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.​
Picture
Vertical Divider
​Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to theVistas & Byways  ​volunteer staff.

Contact the V&B
  • CONTENTS
    • IN THIS ISSUE
    • Fiction
    • Nonfiction
    • Poetry
    • Bay Area Stew
    • Inside OLLI
    • Photo Essays
  • ABOUT US
  • CONTRIBUTORS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ARCHIVES
    • Fall 2021
    • Spring 2021
    • Fall 2020
    • Spring 2020
    • Fall 2019
    • Spring 2019
    • Fall 2018
    • Spring 2018
    • Fall 2017
    • Spring 2016
    • Fall 2015