The Foster City Investigations

A Poetic Account Of A Peninsula Community


Mel C. Thompson


Copyright © 2003 Mel C. Thompson


The following are limited selections from the boolet.

Contact the author for free PDFs and/or free chapbooks of full text.


Laguna vista Park


Blooming iceplants roll out,

forming the island border.

This unguarded check point

is passable by foot-bridge.



Port Royal @ Jamaica


Someone's water skiing

five miles inland, past

reclusive intellectuals

reading the Rig Veda.


Hydra @ Celestial


A bicyclist or two

may wink or stop,

smile or glower,

then pedal away.


Harbortown Walkway


Athletic kayakers,

mellow canoers,

couples in skiffs

paddling to dinner.


Shoreline Park


The dried clay pickleweed

crunches below my feet.

Parachutes are winging

through chaotic currents.


Little Coyote Point


The waters are stirring,

frothing with cloudy mud,

vague, yet unrelenting.

I remain uninformed.


Leo J. Ryan Memorial Park — Part 1


The landscape of the soul:

a Zen/bonsai thing?

an alpine arrangement?

Vienna in Santa Clara?


Killdeer Park


The Zen sandbox.

The Zen loneliness.

Breezes curl above

a concrete porpoise.


Shad park


Necessary elements to establish

guilt beyond a reasonable doubt:

motive, capacity, opportunity,

the coveting of coffee cakes.


Marlin Park


We leap the shallow water.

The sandy beach is empty.

A girl on training wheels

weeps at her first bike.


Sunfish Park


I swim near the bottom

below the green court

in a basketball ocean —

my eyes full of sand.


Booth Bay Park


Kids whir by on scooters,

burning through vast fields.

We slowly pull ourselves

over the Sahara of age.


Arcturus Park — Part 2


The circle and semi-circle

form the islands foundation.

Foster City is a discus

sailing into the future.