For poetry, it's hard to beat the classic "Lights" by co-poets (coets?) Steven Perry and Neil Schon.
While it's a genuine pleasure to read alone or aloud to a group of friends, there are many readily available recorded recitations on CD and in digital formats that really show off the lyric intensity and intellectual beauty of the piece… It's also one of the few poems about San Francisco that I seem to randomly hear with regularity on local radio stations, or during San Francisco Giants home games.
What are great pieces of prose or poetry that take place in San Francisco?
deano.com 