Tag: los angeles

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When that passing-by, retractable roof decides to protect our lovely basin once again from the seven stars above, the color of the sky turns into something a little brown. 
But with some purple to it, 

don’t you think?
It’s too bland and too basic, very
‘Show’s over, folks, grab the tarp from that end over there and will pull it over them together,’

to be something suspect to grey. 

It’s purple Brown, with

Charcoal particle,
covering our night sky and all those seven little stars, 

under lit by the amber brilliance of those ever glowing, One 34 in the morning 
streetlights, 
One 34 in the morning and all two-hundred 23,
thousand, 
sodium
street 
lights. 

(‘That’s it?’) 
Eight hundred and 6
high-rise towers in Los Angeles, 
and that includes the ones that just light up at night to convince you people are working in them. 

There’s also any of the following awake at night and driving (‘We’re thinking Blade Runner, baby’): 
Five, 
million, 
484 thousand
cars,
one hundred and twenty-three thousand, 669 motorcycles and one million, 68 thousand, 213 commercial vehicles (‘Bjork probably eats this shit up!’). 

That’s a lot of light. 

Varied light, too. 
Although there’s been no word from Bird. 
LAX, 
the purple lanterns lighting that one bit up on Riverside. 

All of it. 

Beaming upward. 

Towards that 
Tarp, that 
combination of the charcoal particle, the 
smog, the fog, all those cigarettes – the exhaust of cars, factory fumes, the coughed out black of 2-stroke lawnmowers illegal in California (I think) that turn neighborhood soundscapes into ongoing vamps of cystic sacs popping, the tar pus of them all blasting with expelled squalls of toxic gas out these hyper-active metallic sphincters of robot moose,

And the fires… 

(Remember that photo of the horsies on the sands of Malibu looking towards a blazing horizon, camels too, like Jesus Christ)

And then it all blends in with the clouds? The lot of it all, you know, just all of it combined, the pollutions, 
the light of it all, 

With the fumes and …the clouds. 

Clouds.

Clouds of which – 

Which I suppose we, hm. I see. 

‘What you could say. ‘Is.’’

Well I suppose we could, we
…could say…

I suppose we could say that the clouds in this instance are something suspect to grey. 

Sure,

The lid could have some grey to it. Fine.

By which case, in addition to another observation made moments ago, I stand corrected and renowned. ‘Renewed.’ proudly.

The error here for real, is that the sky is sometimes just the cloud. Sure.

‘Obviously(!),’
You know. ‘It’s just a cloud sometimes,’
And now, 

Here comes a single star.

Could always be a drone, who knows. 

And ah! There’s Jupiter. Could be, at least I’ll open up my app in just a beat. Looks big from where I’m sitting, there goes the cloud and here comes the sky. The sky, 

Looking like a little indigo. 
but with some green to it,

don’t you think? Huh!

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I’ve always wanted church on Sundays, though I’ve never gone,
all that

noise,

The knowing God loves you, just not enough to save you (?), you know,
all that

hoopla,

that spooks.

Though,

Sitting here, I gaze,

Knowing something else is true,
or fine.

I suppose.

The dolphins feed Northbound at 6,
‘Cue the fins,’
Knowing coasts, the mountain lines singing with the sky in stanzas, those motif connect-the-dots upon the staffs, amongst nimbus songs,
Standing, stalled silhouettes negotiating crumble always.
Laughing with them, in this chair, with the fried chicken from the Ralph’s at the Pacific Palisades, where Lizzie once wrote poems too.

Solar flares chill you into embrace and the grains of sands from faraway lands tumble as they dance and flow, into something viscous between your toes,
as he comes to mind (and rubs your shoulders too the way it felt when he held you at night and you trembled low),

(Those hands are gone now),

But there’s your dance, the beach set-up, pomp and circumstance of Sunset deconstruction, that’s kneeling at the altar, Incubator Isle’s empty and you know the water will be good come June.

As His burn sears your neck like a sober kiss,
We peel away and remember:

Body of Christ by way of the 101 to the 405,
Steadfast down Chappaqua after tapping cards at Ralph’s,
onwards towards the Pacific,
church on Sunday’s by way of Saturday,
by way of surrendering to the presences you always knew were always there,
His kingdom your pew,
vice versa, vice versa, Ad Infinitum,

and there’s a 17 minute slowdown on Sunset,
but you’re still on the fastest route.

on by

we took our hands into the pines and
pined
for the view we knew we knew,
and begged it to be new, at least renewed,
setting Sun, speckled, caught
in the pools like tears we sought
looking down the hill at Cedar Grove.

Mistaken mounds for mountains climbed,
ascended once again
for that view of Oz on Bunker Hill, the one I showed you once
the one you promised was ours at last.

Asking how it’s been, insisting nothing’s wrong,
there’s nothing wrong, but something’s wrong
and sometimes people are simply wrong,

the placation in omission,
the appeasement of a view.

Cross-wired fires, deathscrolls inspired,
everything’s fine with talk of wine
and where to go once we’re down at our cars

that are parked by the Greek.

Keys in the ignition, there’s the thoughts of our position
do we flee or drive into a tree, fucking
tired of the rhyme and reason.
Our
pathologies in treason, inside in spite of what we knew
was best for us,
that view we knew we knew
renewed.

Until the inevitable flames of Indian summer come around
and the mistaken mounds of mountains climbed
are once again scorched
by the cross-wired flashes of all things hot
and we incinerate into phoenix ash with the promised blossom,
or unfurled crimson wings
and blinded flight towards our setting
Settling Sun.

Asking how it’s been, insisting nothing’s wrong,
there’s nothing wrong, but something’s wrong
and sometimes people
we’re simply wrong.

Some things don’t know what’s best for them
it’s why they don’t know what’s wrong with them.






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An old lady with a hunched back had just left the Bar @ Pacific Theaters (at The Grove)
and was headed for the door. 

She was pulling a parking voucher out of her purse to get it stamped.
And she had just finished her beer,

I want to say after watching ‘Overboard.’

Voucher in hand she slowly lurches off her stool and with a crane cranks herself towards the
revolving doors that would lead her out of the Pacific Theaters at The Grove towards the fountains that dance for Sinatra and always Sinatra even during Christmas

Outside the Pacific Theaters at the Grove.

Some dude on a date with a guy nudges his newfound boy-toy’s shoulder,
Points at the lady as she tries to push herself out and through the doorway.

And like,
She’s caught in some sort of kinetic vortex,
battling at the handles for the cycle to go her speed as an eager couple late for their movie tries to barrel on through,
Leftover quesadilla in their Cheesecake Factory plastic bag with the emblazoned cursive red print that allows them to assume they’d just dined and died in Vienna,

But with quesadillas.

Meanwhile this dude with the baby-trick’s just getting a kick out of the shit,
Nudging on and pressing it onto his bought-out ass piece wearing Penguin and some
Florsheim’s,
You know,
dressed to impress in LA (he should’ve worn a graphic tee),
And he knows it with his hands in his pockets
You can see his upset from his being asked to look at what makes his ride-home feel vindicated and immune to the amorphous curse of time,
As him and his other buddies crack yes now,
Something about WD-40 on the bitch.

The young man does nothing to help the lady

As she hobbles onward and into the night light off dancing fountains and 20 dollar salads without salmon at La Piazza.

Quesadilla couple makes it to their movie.

I think the boys with their boys were headed for the same auditorium.

I would’ve done something but I was a next in line for a beer,

at the Bar @ Pacific Theaters,

This one time in the Pacific Theaters lobby at The Grove.

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Fires in the sky of California and sunset in the desert’s been chased beyond the sepia void,
where mountains once screamed for the title of what’s left on our horizon.

It’s as though they’d all gone fucking mental, but now they’re gone, too, don’t you see?

They were onto something.

I never thought I was insane,
just that I allowed myself to be treated undisputedly towards and through the brink of my own,
regenerative,
nuclear
meltdown.

Keeping cool,
For now, though, thinking of when you asked me if I’d ever been to Aspen.
That helps.

Instead of separate homes, a part of me wishes we were riding towards the Gas Lite, at the end of the line,
Down on Wilshire, Karaoke Wednesdays every night,
And you’re in your board shorts and flip flops and once we’re there we spill the spells, and you

tell me there’s a secret reservoir somewhere apparently in Malibu, where
If you keep going straight down old Crags road, there’s a lake nearby made from a dam.
You say we’ll find a Left up ahead and once we take it that’s where we find our spring,
So.

After singing Kokomo (there’s PBR’s in there somewhere), we drive onward upward onto Kanan road,
And at the dead of night,
The deadest before Dawn,
We mistake the moon for the 5 PM we used to know two hours ago and suddenly my bumper’s not falling off like it used to (You’d pulled over and fixed it while I napped through the blink of an eye) and when I woke we were flying and you were talking about barnacles in Massachusetts.

There’s no longer a light to the heat but lower the window, see?
It feels like it’s still there. It now brims and breathes, but from below, the peddled ground, you feel it don’t you, it’s become what made it so?

On the way after our dip at the Century Reservoir,
You’re sure to stop for some slushees and airplane liquor to quench my lungs from the American Spirit that scorched my breath a pack ago today.
I hold your hand and you
My crotch. Your grip’s a kiss,
Mine’s
Raspberry lisps
As we’re driving onward through the Mojave,
Towards the snows of Colorado and you’re driving,
the thoughts of ski lifts
and thrusts in some hot tub keep our eyes ahead of what’s already become of us now,
In this moment here,
driving towards the fires
In the skies,

of California.

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Night clouds of thunder their 
Lightening forever lit and stalled and netted, 
Window frames of ember-ed gold –
Champagne cherries, lit cigarettes 
Tangled down by the smoking swaying 
Canopies of the hills, 
Looking down 
Towering over 
While us down here in the grid,
The shining rows of halogen and brake lights, neon too 
Somewhere in there that’s where the Pikey used to be – 
Down further
Nordstrom memorializes yesteryear Beverly Park with its Kiddie Land and laughs and screams,
Soon imported like just the other day 
Towards down the bend just past the beanery, 
Where pastels shine like moons
And swings are reserved for Mickey’s.
Stolichnaya’s closed for the night but the flour’s set to pour in and float with plumes within a couple hours, 
Before the birds squeal over territory,
Though after mic drops echoing of cheering crowds finally fade
And Jacarandas still sway with greeting for Spring,
Lilac into mauve into indigo at night, 
No matter the light up until dawn. 

on by

I can’t recall Vaseline Alley
In fact I’ve never known it, 
But the sensation sure, 
Kate waltzing through her Sensual World,
Her Machavellian kneels, afterward 
Gargling over at Gold Coast Listerine, fresh-minted moscow mules still tasting of warm water and salt but with ice. 
Smoke breaks with e-pens, the new cruise, 
Pay no regard the new what’s your number, bumped shoulders the ASL,
Ever been to Basix, the new Have we done this before. 
Pining eyes leaned against the dumpster,
Or so I was told,
Beyond the backroom at the Circus
the jostled down service entrance with broken frames, the broken promise one would 
hope to break with a score,
in a time before it became nothing but for pissing in secret and the piece 
of the night’s 270 feet away, so says on the phone, 
but the line at the Abbey’s gone on way too long to hone in on one’s instant connection. 
The scraping of boots and Levi’s against asphalt gone – 
Along the way said goodbye to the initial heave and thrust against brick walls and 
signs that read No Loitering, 
Surrendered for deafening noise
and crinkling bottles of water,
No need hearing what one’s saying, 
so long as glazed eyes read and gauge the lips,
A pondering wallow for the alleys of men whose men took the knee 
before the G, and in knowing dismissal of the 
fluid death decades later would soon resign without a halt
fortified through kneading and needing,
the nurseries turned nightclubs where most now so secure would
forgo the bated pining for tough and being 
for the grasp of the excessive, the night forgotten until 
recounting the evening with 1 PM morning’s chilaquiles. 

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I read Elton performed Honky Tonk Woman
Sometime before the lines were no longer a thing, 
at least the lines before we knew them, 
six feet apart at least a gaggle of twenty 
cramped merch tables and spilt Fireball, 
pressed against the wall opposite of the bar, guitars hung, their strings, they’re totems 

Joni Mitchell 1968 
Amateur Tom Waits discovered some time later, thanks to Herb 
Some time before Miles brought back the cool sounds of jazz 
and Bob plays for Roger’s encore – keep the car going, 
in this Sad Cafe, red neon into blue
and Eagles meet before they soar. 

Persian rugs laid into plates of spaghetti wire
With the ladies of the canyon driving down in their trucks and double-parking, 
Carly’s worth the tow. 
Baths of sweat come with sines from wood
With pressed chests and shoulders making rested pillows for lovers’ chins, 
Until the noise rings only in the drum of the hearts 
and is once released outside in the air of the desert basin, 
the towering Oz of Century City, a reminder of footing outside euphoria, 
and exhaust of Santa Monica Boulevard the standing fans that cake the sweat and plunges the skin into a plaster of grunge.

New York comes to mind, 
Troubadour the city of its own institution, 
Friends made hours in shared lyrics, sure, shared sips of course,
Scattered into the night for good before ascending back up into Laurel Canyon or up the block through Norma Triangle, where, Billboard lights on Sunset Boulevard now gone LED
Shine bodies turned mannequins fossilize 
The forever ago of the set into a single moment, a single noise
out of the wood temple trappings amidst a town of the boys
lays the city of gold, 
two doors through towards the stage, 
Catching rocketman at age 2-3, his America sold. 

on by

Cars slipping down ‘The’s’
Cascading river of fuming light
They don’t know what they’ve made for us 
Up here or up above
I don’t think they even give a shit  

I know I wouldn’t  

Bjork had a video once,
Something about us
Us
Super computer humans with
Microchip warehouses 
And Datahouse condos
Prius coffins also all
Overheating
Pulses
Avid clicks
On fire
We always look it, don’t we  

The Sun
That’s blood orange of Northern Italy 
Milan on the horizon
Where’d you get that from It looks very nice on you, doesn’t it

The speckled congregations of halogen and pathogen
You should see how Berlin divides from Space
You mass
Metastasizing
Turnpike veins
Lumpectomies for Costco’s
Strip-malls the historic brownstone
You’re post-modern babe
Googie temples
Drive-thru Mecca
You wouldn’t want Paris 
But its recipes, Republique,
Or AirBNBs
Its grams and IG’s and the cobblestone 
No maybe not that
Digging for the finest ideas, though, you
City harvesters
Acting as gatherers
Sometimes the gesture does us in enough. 

An idea of you as home as always frightened me
‘I’d rather be buried elsewhere’.  

But yes I suppose there’s something more
Now I see you
Something you’re brought on me
You tumor of grids 
Masses of galaxies 
Trons of Jons and Vons and Lawns 
People yearn for the maps of our stars
They always fall but 
Never across the sky
For all the gravities you push into your orbit
Bunch up
And pull up
Into the hills
Constellations overlooking Milky Ways 
You’re just all of me
And all of us 
Us dreamers
Weilding tongues of snakes and shamans 
Saturn Sirens
Vegans of Neptune
Peasants of Pluto we meme-share without desire for contact
Elitist loner-dom
Echoed shadows my denizens 
I’m home and I’m landing
How God I wish I could see you at night when I look up at the sky the way I look at you on the ground
Landing now, I’ll need a smoke
Maybe then I’ll say I’m home
Here it comes, the tires down
Our Landing gear in set
Concrete burn and skid
$60 Uber
And standing idly on the escalator no matter which side you wish to lean
I taste the dry
Air cakes the face like a mask
Smog-filtered movie-glasses
Rose
Into Rosé and violet and Aperol Spritz
Heavenly graffiti.  

Being here’s like always waiting on the gates.  

Fuck being buried, 
I don’t know if we’re ever getting in.