Best Los 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.
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
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.
In this ever-changing world of entertainment any day
An artist could accomplish what he once thought
Was an impossible feat with a little elbow grease
And dedication you may gain a reputation
For being remarkable you'll see
With the right preparation there's no limitations
On who you could become but don't be dumb
With all of the money that you receive because
Bankruptcy comes in the blink of an eye
And You could become a where are they now rerun
Watching VH1 with a barrel in your mouth
Ready to decorate your couch with the back of your scalp
Because you're financially f*****
It's a Fickle industry That can give you everything
But take it away in a matter of days
Especially because
It's so incredibly hard to obtain longevity y'all definitely
shouldn't expect to be in the spotlight indefinitely trust
Fame is a flammable entity that many see go up in Flames
Yes it will eventually be gone
Having a rockstar mentality
Has the mortality rate around the same
Of an insane persons grasp on reality.... low
Don't go traveling Roads that rapidly
Lead you to the middle of nowhere don't go
Chasing that rabbit all the way down that gigantic hole there no
Because that rabbit is faster than any bastard
You've ever encountered and the chances
Of you catching his ass are below fair
& it's so rare i swear
That you're just better off
Staying at home there
Los Angeles 1982
my piece got me out of many a jam
(but I mostly just pointed it)
and the bad guy always said “I didn’t want to do it”,
or “I’m misunderstood”, or that he wasn’t bad at all
and when I showed him my badge and my integrity
and called out “hands up!”,(if he was still with us)
he would offer me a bunch of flowers, or a bunch
of lies, or a bunch of fives
or some story he’d made up (like a poem)
and I’d see him off to the big house
for half a lifetime or forever, or even worse
and in there, there’s no milkshake, or TV Times or
walks on a Sunday morning to the deli
and they all laugh at you like you’re crazy or lazy
or need a fix but they like your tattoos and scars
and the stories (lies) that go with them
and after a while you can hear the sound of
the storm drain
washing away the money from your last job
along with your self- respect and self-neglect
and they’ve all got a sister and a mother
who writes to them (they say)
and the family you were never sure about
but who liked you in a funny kind of way
disappear from view, maybe moved away, or became
astronauts, or politicians, or just got tired of writing:
now… do you want all of that?
No?...so come quietly