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

Shape of Anticipation

There are a few little things
I notice when you're sleeping
One, I see a pull toward warmth, a closing
Two, I see a twitch, a tic, a stir, a stop
Three, I see stillness
I'm asleep myself before there can be four

Instead of running away or taking away
Let's call it something else
Like making songs or raking leaves
Or writing histories
Big things up close
Small things from far away

In the moment before
We speak of belonging
Or the moment after
We speak it again
I hear in the exhalation
A sweet anticipation
If I had to guess its color
I'd say orange
If I had to guess its shape
I'd say a bendy line
Two sides meeting, closing
Into a barely open eye
If I had to pick a place
I'd want to see that orange shape
It would be a finger length above
The smaller of the two big planes

February 28, 2007

May Not Have Been An Oak

the kindness you think is free
is broken glass to me
stained but shiny still
the kindness won’t, history will
the tree that stood forlorn
may not have been an oak
the words were not heartfelt
the poem was a joke

the cherry hair you pull
in strands from your white sink
glistens and meanders
its death a dollar drink
I will pull along for you
until the first desert day
when we reach the mystic spot
I will pull and turn away

the picture frames you build
from clear glue and trees killed
have grown weary with age
old wood, decline, rage
two spirits, deserted in a bleak sun
screaming “I’m the only one!”
but one of you is wrong
the older sister, all along

you tumble, gravely, to the soil
and listen to the dead ones
gravity is the enemy
the fallen freaks the poet shuns
and I know your eye shape
changes with each day
but that will mean little
when the loved one is away

April 20, 1998

Your First Time

the sky you saw the first time
you came to Chicago, a child almost
is a brittle sky, a breakable one
tell me all you know
about why you are this way
was it what you were given
when you landed in O’Hare
with a ribbon in your hair
and a suitcase full of summer clothes
even though
it was November

the first time you were young
you made a hopeful gesture
you thought you could handle
both spirituality and mayhem
you almost pulled it off
it almost came alive your hands
you’re so polite

but this city, this Chicago, is different now
from your first time, there are movements now
in neighborhoods, all over town
movements to make changes
small revolutions
international city

but, it’s not your Los Angeles
no place is as vital
in the way it moves
both for peace
and distance
cynics forget that distance makes the dust
irrelevant
distance makes the day seem a proud thing

April 16, 1998

Technology Drive

for the pleasure of your regrets
I will claim the system
has a root in the dead ground
of Technology Drive
when we were alive
it was all too good
it was all we wanted anyway

for the pleasure of your regrets
I will deem you weak
I will make your noise
turn inward on its late lost self
it was a different kind of home
leave my monkey alone

April 15, 1998