I Love LA in a Song

I love LA in a song -

Purple, yellow, sandy and near-forgotten;
Like the ghost of neon from the mind
Of some screenwriter
Who arrived too late
To call the city's melancholy
Their own.

Stretched out between sunsets
The gentle lap of ocean
The brown haze
The palm silhouettes
Almost ghosts themselves
In a pre-twilight fervor;
These bars poor imitations
Of any New York could offer;
These women melting together
Already forgotten.

It plays all like a 45 record,
Slightly scratchy, the needle
Not quite caught, these indentations
And valleys of sound and memory all driven down
Many times before, but how sweet
They begin
And how sadly sunrise looks in the rear view,
Lighting up this white-washed concrete,
The glittering beauty of the angels' city
Scuffed and beaten in the harsh brown daylight.

Would those angels live here now?
Would the concrete desert of dreamers
Feel lost to them should they visit?
Would anyone notice amidst the carnival
Of boardwalk and bacchanalia?
Or would we send them looking again
For the sparkling beauty of what could be in some other basin of the world, perhaps some other world altogether?

Perhaps that is where the melancholy lives-
Those moments when we know
They have descended
And left already,
The itch of them
Like a stray hair after the barber,
Constantly sought after,
And never quite found.

On top of the Roof

I stood on the roof
In my underwear
Among the summer stars
And memories of older things
And thought, "If anyone
Were to witness this
They'd think I was some
Terrible romantic
Drunk on his feelings."

In some ways they'd be right,
Others not. I thought of you
And me, in my silent reverie
Watching the universe together,
Thinking how small our lives
Actually were, but how meaningful
They became, together.

How meaningful it was to create,
To harbor some beautiful something
In oneself, to lead to other
Beautiful somethings. I thought
Of friends, staring at summer stars,
Perhaps not quite in the same way,
But meaningful in their own fullness,
In their experience.

There is an old man somewhere
Down the line, looking at these same stars,
Stars that may have changed only slightly
Some flamed out, some beginning to only
Reach us here on our small planet,
Staring up and noting
"This sky, no matter how old
Will always bring me wonder."

And he will turn around
Go back inside the window
To his room and see you,
Smiling coyly and wondering
"Does he mind the neighbors
Seeing him in his underwear?"

And realizing, in the same moment,
He never has, nor ever will.

Us

Walking in our door,
The thought occurred
I need to clean this place.
But everything out of place:
The shirt over the chair,
The dust in the corner,
The moldy staleness
In our windowless bathroom;
All are a consequence of us
And comfort came
In the untidy bedspread
As I laid down my keys
And went for a drink of water.

Vacation

Time to get rid

of everything - 

to cool off, to bask

in the blessing

of a cool wind

on a hot beach

somewhere

watching your back

as you walk 

to the ocean,

sweat tracing

your spine, falling

between the tie

of your swimsuit

as you wade 

to the water 

and bend 

to pick up a seashell.

Losers

Then we lost.
It wasn't the losing that bothered us
it was the time. The time it took for us to lose.
The time we spent, to lose in the end.

We aren't losers. We aren't small.

But time made us small, made us square,
squeezed us in the end into

people who lost. Now loss is carried
in our tired shoulders.

Now there won't be as much

time

to try
and lose
again.

She Said/He Said

She said

I'll leave. You'll stay.

I said

Don't go. Come back.

She said

Not anymore. Not ever again.

I say

Just once. Just one more time.

She said

It's over. It's done.

I say

All of this. It's for you.

She said

It's too much. Too much for me.

I say

Don't be gone. Don't go away.

She said

Stop waiting. It's your time.

I say

Not yet. Not now.

Anxiety

Stop.
Wait.
Breathe.

It's like -

Wait. Stop.

I'm trying to tell you.

Freeze. Breathe.

I can't tell you.

I can't think.

"Do you not remember what I said before?!"

No, I can't. Words right now -

Stop. Freeze. Wait. Breathe.



Am I breathing?

Wait.

Stop.

"What did I just say?"

Don't remember, don't have words -

Breathe. Stop.

Scared. Terrible. Freeze.

"Are you listening?!"


Can't hear you. No words.


Me. Horrible.

Breathe.
Stop.
Wait.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.