Best Angeles Poems
After we met
I thought we really had something,
Really hit it off.
It wasn’t the words we spoke,
The easy fluorescent trail they made.
Maybe it was the Japanese lantern
Glowing over your bare shoulder
Or the smile you threw
To the side-
To someone.
Or maybe it was the cool damp air,
Slight seduction of rain
But no rain.
Perfect, cool molecules,
Layer on layer,
Air sitting on air.
But after, I couldn’t find you.
I couldn’t find you
In the heavy-sitting valleys,
Behind the cool barriered hedges
With stone guard dogs,
In the palm shadowed boulevards
Or the canyon mazes.
I couldn’t find you
In the final exhalations of space,
On sun baked, cracked cement plaza drives.
I couldn’t find you
In the starkly lined avenues
Amongst the serious-expressioned manikins.
It really is a desert here, huh?
Had said the pale cheeked waiter from Wisconsin
While we waited for you to come back.
Yes, I thought, touching the sweating water glass.
A stage set in a desert
Filled with mirages and promises
And doors that no one answers
And roads that curve toward the sun.
We both knew you weren’t coming back.
I won’t find you again
But I will keep looking
And looking
And looking.
There is always that chance.
Yes, to find someone like you.
That chance.
I leave alone,
Tip under plate.
A dog barks at my steps,
Waits, barks again.
We are both close,
Yet impossibly,
Far from home.
There are many good people from Hollywood. Hollywood is a working class district of L.A. (1 of 42 districts). Celebs don't live there which includes the Epstein ilk. Bad people are all over the place, especially the Red States and their people who voted for the bad leaders. There are bad dictators all over the world, repressing the women, not just in America. I've never heard of KKK members in Hollywood, I have in the Maga States. Let's not bundle all people in Hollywood, that is ignorance!
A good Ambassador Hollywood, to the world along with Jazz music, Hollywood movies, with their dazzling musicals, bright comedies, and intense dramas, and Si Fi, has been the dream maker for the world! Even those working in the movie industry were by and large hard working Americans. Glamorous actors just a tip of the ice berg. For those conservatives, they should remember Regan was a product of Hollywood. Thank you very much.
City across the water, night by violet aurora
Los Angeles, we're further south than I thought (than we should be)
I take a strewn-bark trail to get a better view
Hand me the camera, Polaroids in quick succession (when is this?)
It's not quite capturing it, never the depth of field we need
Daybreak (remembering, there's no bay in LA)
Scores of Chinese workers emerge from pores in pagodas
Hauling, cleaning, young mean men, old pig-tailed women, children too small to see clearly
Faces are rusty, resolutely worn
I can zoom in but can't get there from here
Night again, back on the trail
A man appears from the palm brush behind
Could pass for a 1930s Okie hobo; faded salmon shirt, crushed felt hat
Something in his beard
He just wants to feel the lights and see the palms
Gunshots, on my side of the water
Okie flees, I hear whispers, overlapping
This is good stuff, though unnerving
I should be writing this down
Ushered from the scene, to somewhere I didn't expect to be
Living in the city of lights
One among many Angels in flight
Souls that connect, artists we are
Always a place to converse with a star
Never boring or lonely because
Gravity pulls us together with buzz
Everything moving in fast pace
Life is simply a beautiful race
Engraved in my heart this city I love
Sunshine and diamonds and friends in my land.
A land of beauty art and aspirations
The most exciting place to take vacations.
Around the corner in an alley
Behind a run-down diner
On a nameless Los Angeles street
Two strangers converge slowly on
The appointed location where
Their mutual connection set a meet
On their first point of contact
An explosive reaction that
Produced something violent and divine
They continued their encounters
Coupling, colliding, entwining, dividing
Nearly every day of aught nine
Like every age of greatness
The trysts gradually abated
Until the two hardly met at all
Behind a run-down diner
On a nameless corner
A memorial in graffiti on the wall
May 26, 2017
Grimy sweaty dusk,
L.A. hazy horizon.
Steaming torrid lune.
My Guardian Angels
4/2013
Tattooed Angels
Enshrine my body,
Protectors of what's right,
forever vigilant
All day and all through the night!
Ganesh, Hindu Elephant God,
Loyal son of Shiva and Parvati
Embodiment of selfless devotion/remover of obstacles
Provider of strength and honesty
The winged Sufi Heart
Coupled with the holiest name, ????
A constant reminder of Who I really Am,
And from whence I came!
Phoenix, symbol of rebirth
Arise from the fires of hell
To reclaim thy rightful place,
On the throne from which I fell
Oh Great Buddha
Bodhisattva, the compassionate one,
Exorcize my demons, my suffering,
Sitting beneath the Bodhi Tree, thy will be done
Om Mani Padme Hum
Adorns my left arm
Beneath the Double Dorje, Dharma Wheel,
Stating "Life just IS" It is the magical charm
Peace symbol amidst Growing Vines,
a life long bond of daughter and Dad,
Symbolic of ever growing and expanding love
Alive, vibrant, political, for this I'm am forever glad
Celtic Tree of Life, Sustainer of beauty and grace,
making connections with all that is alive,
Encompassing the dark and the light
Enclosed in a circle of wholeness, where all life does thrive
Ouroboros, snake eating it's own tail,
Symbol of completion, of that which is whole,
encompassing both the tree of peace, and the Celtic tree of life
The snake forms the sign of infinity, opening the way for the SOUL!
Shekinah, Quan Yin, Gaia, Great Goddess,
Resting in a Pyramid of Power
She is our foundation,
so necessary by which to scale the tower
We find the ancient holiest of names,
Emblazoned in a ring of fire
forbidden to be spoken or written
with the promise to take you higher!
A beating heart, Star of David, and Om,
Union of opposites and the universal sound
Life, Compassion, Peace, & Love,
The Divine presence is all around!
My Angels, guardians of body & soul
Artistic symbols of love & hope
Battling a debilitating disease
Giving me the will and strength to cope
This is the hub of Angels; by which I call a city
A concrete jungle of building that's never been pretty:
Culture in place for the unappealing disparity at its center
Come! And waver off on years of aimless wandering when you enter
The Angels must’ve failed; their endowments left unfilled
Our authenticity is a euphemism; a place by where dreams are killed
We follow the hoods of lavish cars that lead us to the sea
Must be that it’s an easy place to douse in our vanity
The Angels future looks bright now and beyond.
They caught the biggest fish in the free agent pond.
Albert Pujols comes from the Cardinals in St. Louis.
He is a first baseman with great baseball prowess.
Left handed pitcher CJ Wilson also came.
This former Texas Ranger is at the top of his game.
Add them to the horses already in the stable,
and anyone can say the Anaheim team is quite able.
They can jump into first right out of the starting gate.
Los Angeles fans will see a team that is great.
In October, will there be a World Series trophy?
That will be an event with huge plausibility.
Anti-Poem — “Baxter Street Monday”
me trudging walking
gripping onward forward
traipsing baxter street monday
and its steep inclines
going up like a dizzy sparrow
passing vertical merry go rounds
the sly moulin rouge turnabouts
that sip spit with maraschino endives
scanning thighs ripe with hard-ons
the stoner pink boys
lost in rainbow cul-de-sacs
lost amidst the traffic tirades
the propelling grind of accelerators
up up and onward everlasting
floating hovering over shy ascensions
in ravenous echo park
me scratching grinding like steel death
holding tight the skin wheel
trudging baxter street monday
the morning reality suspensions
the daily cyclotron of kidney exertions
of ascending footsteps moving skinward
now racing down baxter street monday
descending and plummeting
passing vertical merry go rounds
the sly moulin rouge turnabouts
i see my sista rosa gonzalez
she be screaming down with wet wings
sending love bouquets to my los angeles
Anti-Poem— “Going To See Honey Sanchez”
gloria and me we take a yellow taxi from canoga park
we go to see honey sanchez at the olympic on grand
she be the dragon lady on skates she and terri lynch
both of them girls be tough as nails in their ripe beauty
both wearing thunderbird white riding fire and blood
lighting up the banked track against the texas outlaws
gloria keep telling shirley hardman she be dead wrong
stop your mean ways shirley girl stop beating on honey
baby she say to me could I get her a soda and peanuts
the crowd be all noisy tonight and I can smell hot dogs
the people here they be rowdy and angry they scream
cuss words eating greasy onion rings and drinking beer
my gloria she be saying only one skater be her top hero
I says who and she smiles and say it be honey sanchez—
skater dragon lady at 18th and grand in her ripe beauty
I was a soldier fallen from grace
Angels surround me saving my face
Lonely and scattered struggling to find
A place I could trust to share my mind.
I found the soup
Then it found me
We began a journey
That set my heart free
A comment here, a contest winner
I could spill my words without feeling a sinner
A second home that took me away
From any dirt that came my way.
I found the soup
Then it found me
We began a love
That set my heart free
As time rolled on
I judged others writing
Loving the way
I could feel people fighting
To earn first place in the contests I ran
Made me feel useful
Body starting to mend
The chemistry was right
When I wrote through the night
The soup saved me soul
As a soldier I fight
I was a soldier falling from grace
Then I met soup and I'm back in the race.
Kristen bruni. June 19, 2014.
On Saturday, the L A Rams
Encountered the Monterey Clams
With no and, if, or but
It was open and shut
The Sopranos limped home like lambs!
Never had I met you
Still I know your name,
Because of the notoriety
Because of the fame
Written in stone
Forever and a day,
Many gone too soon
Seems to happen that way
Halls of Hollywood memories
Echo down the tomb ...
In a place of reverie
Not a place of gloom
Legends of the silver screen
Lives of cinema and script,
Lying in silent repose
In walls of the crypt
Living on in pictures
In ghostly black and white,
Gone but not forgotten
Under legacy's bright light
I can leave a flower ...
Can touch your nameplate,
In life I could never
Get near one so great.
It’s in Los Angeles, California
where I spent some days
to be with a few friends and confreres;
they welcomed and invited me for dinner
a great experience, well appreciated!
With the continuing summer heatwave,
it limited the option to travel,
however, with enthusiasm and willingness
to move along –
made me realize that the world of migration
articulates the same tone, ‘let’s move on.’
Part of the background across the whole land
hills and dry lands, low houses with a common style
similar to those in my homeland: Philippines
with Spanish influence that defines so far.
Los Angeles with its growing residents
Latinos and Asians, Europeans and Afro-Americans
most of them are Mexicans, along with Chinese,
Japanese, Filipinos like in Chinatown.
Oh, their presence here as immigrants
enables one to understand
that California stands like any other lands
swamped with a hodgepodge of immigrants.
Those homeless people you’ll find in every place
restaurants and other business sites
the Angelinos in the cityland,
in Hollywood city where I had a chance –
to visit and enjoy some lovely sights
with my friends and confrere in the religious life.
The Walk of Fame and other landmarks to see
lovely displays like souvenirs and mementos;
oh Los Angeles, the city of cultures!
where Catholicism grows in legendary proportion.