Dirty Brea

Dirty Brea, filthy Brea
Your streets are paved with Robert Smith
Your trees are trimmed with amethyst
Stumps forgotten, leaves gone rotten
I love you Brea, I hate you too
There is no order but there's always you

Dirty Brea, filthy Brea
Lambert is lined with broken tiles
Shattered tables for a quarter-mile
I swore I'd never go back but
Poolside, we drank the sweetened iced tea
And the carport holds the deepest memory

Dirty Brea, filthy Brea
Your mall is built on wishful thinking
Your canyon's dry for teenage drinking
Date Street swoons behind Imperial
And dead ends at that little house
The purple house, the perfect house

March 20, 2007

Flashback Caruso

I didn't know
That a German wrote that song
It makes sense, the funny English
The poetry, the fatalism, the existential hope
All of 20th century Europe
Distilled into three short verses

In retrospect, it was obvious
That it wasn't written by anyone
From San Francisco
But still
She brought it home
She sounded less tentative
More grounded, dreamier

March 8, 2007

Franklin

Franklin cuts a swath
through the undead part of Hollywood
castles, cabs, and carnivals
abstract national holidays
a cave-like colony, a setting sun
tell me you’re the only one
tell me you’re the only one

a pile of broken bones
held together by mottled skin
said to me “remember
the glorious past, the levitating,
the parties, the retirement coffee
remember, please remember”

Franklin ends eventually
where the hills are hamstrung by the trees
here, take one of these
something real is happening
a ceiling, shrouded, gilded
pretending that there is no sun
tell me you’re the only one
tell me you’re the only one

May 5, 1997