We’re here for a short while
and laying down no roots,
the words that we choose
to capture something of its scope,
reflect more the hopelessly transitory
in this city of ghosts.
So we’ll toast to ascendency
and extract from every landmark
some past tragedy
violence has painted into the fabric of memory.
In the cracks between decades
something is always in motion.
It seems harder to distinguish or make clear demarcations
in the larger charcoal drawing of shadows merging
into the shape of things to come.
Adrift in the chaos of what cannot be controlled
is the free fall of letting go.
Many are cast aside in the afterglow of so many nights.
Smoldering cigarettes after sex in Sunset billboards black and white.
This is how the city freeze frames a cry for release
before being torn down, snuffed out and forgotten.
After the sirens passed and the suicides attached,
what is left of the past?
What still resides at the Alto Nido apartments?
The quiet splendor of fire escapes and brass
do not betray the eyes that watch you from behind
myriad layers of glass.
In Los Angeles it must be asked,
what side of the lens do you find yourself on?
How have the roles been reversed
in a city of never subtle metamorphosis?
In Alta Cienega’s green and decrepit halls,
where spray painted messages crawl like lizards
into the cracked mirrors of your distorted visage.
Rothdell Terrace still expresses a hidden presence
in the wind chimes that climb back into the canyon
unpeeling layers upon layers
of the past that never stays that way in LA,
so we chase time.
In Hollywood some dahlias turn black in the shade while dreams fade.
Velvet wishes become frail images in ornate theaters
where we’ll voyeur the silver screen,
tune in to the noir scream
on a frequency like a pained string of coincidences
pulled along the neon boatride of boulevards.
Stuck on the freeway, in an assembly of eyes
like empty electric sockets
plugged in to the media enterprise.
Breaking news again,
twisted men on rooftops
desensitized to violence
but we cannot avert or disguise the decay
but tune in to the suffering
the same way we would entertainment.
We take endless pictures of
bloody sunsets in magenta smog and chemical sky
descending into darkness
like a chain reaction of mansions blinking on
as the disappearing wilderness turns to ash.
There’s no hue that will last here
or any signs to divine from the fires.
The city seems perched on the edge of an abyss
and all the agents appear ready to flip the script to chaos
and when you strip away all the glamour and the sheen,
that’s all we’re left with
in this city, so we flee again.
yakskinpocketnotes 