Disclaimer
This is no way what you are
I hear you are living in Portland
What’s it like there in Portland
I hear it’s green in summer
Maybe you have real trees / seasons
like we have here Pretty soon
the pollen will be greening it right up
The hills are amazing / we don’t have hills
Last season, the rugged sides of
the cliffs I remember
California / I didn’t see just
canyons ridge and dry brush / basin
When I stood outside of myself
I was outside of love
(I was) a desert man
in a desert city
Now I am dry
and thirsty
LA Sky. Water. Air.
Maybe it is a trainwreck
This LA meltwater bathwater
Bucket and basin
Crash of all things and edge of a crash
But
I’m in love with it
I want to write more love poems for you
So that you can see how it happens
Right here in the west where they said
Maybe I’ll even find a tattoo for you
For your arm or your neck
Or your chest
I dreamt of LA that first night
In Barstow
Where the trains were running all night
All night
The fire was in me so I kept driving
Down to Victorville
Across the Palmdale Road
Onto the Antelope Hwy
And into Santa Clarita
The wind was howling
I kept going south
That’s when I saw LA for the first time
A millions of streets and lightses and houses
Gas stations and billboards
You can’t imagine all the palm trees
Well maybe you can
I couldn’t
I knew it was night. It looked like day.
I wondered if this was all LA
LA–
How did you manage to do this without me,
And why are you still doing it?
Like briars on a broken highway
You turn the wash skillet
And I am going…
I bike to Mentryville there is
An old house there
An old school and oil pumps
Pepper trees on the path
Then sage
And marigold?
I wonder what these are—
Flowers inside the canyons
Are new to me
The sun isn’t new
But it’s late not early
The sun is going
Down
Down
In and around Mentryville
The first oil was discovered here
In the 1870s
Now it’s all dirty and broken
Pump parts and sulfur
Abandoned things
You find in these canyons
Ahead is a broken highway—
Washed out by a flood once
Now covered with thick briars
I wonder
If I took a picture of this
Would you still want me?
dream-bike-reverie
Lover, an apartment
Loving the flavors of someone
Peach and green and tan
Are the pastels
Lost in the prints that you could not name/master
No color
Dust from your arms
This town is new to me and I see it
Feel it
Cold in the morning
I go out for a ride on my bicycle
Up and down the paseos
Into the neighborhoods
The houses sit like this | |
The days are rich
The sun sheer as cut glass
I could go back to my place and make a sandwich
Or I could call you
My best friend tells me
Santa Clarita
Newhall, Valencia
Like names in the mind
The whole valley is glittering with them