Best Pasadena Poems
Of parrots and parakeets, no one knows
now numbering in the thousands
no longer Mexico's bucolic birds
new urbanized citizens migrated
to the suburbs.
If you travel to Los Angeles and county
where hobo avians flock to Pepperdine
hoping to matriculate to paradise..
Pasadenans know the raucous calls from palms
festooned in bright feathers and pheromones.
Should you wish to elicit a response
from a Red-crowned Amazon..
just ask any witch cat which hungers
with an acute accessory olfactory
rife in feline grin and purpose
eye'n the skies cheerfully.
And somewhere Marianne Faithfull warbles
'this little bird who lives on the wind,
this little bird that somebody sends.'
they're listening too, with a coo and squawk
o'er the skies of Silverlake
and Eagle Rock.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This Little Bird sung by Marianne Faithfull - Lyrics by J.D. Loudermilk 1965
Categories:
pasadena, bird, journey, paradise,
Form:
Verse
Yellow Submarine comes on the radio.
Beatles music.
I press the accelerator, flying past semis who had been chasing each other.
Little Old Lady from Pasadena comes on next.
I go insane, setting a new world record for speed.
Mama Cass’s voice comes out of that radio.
It is ON!
Shades of my youth
When I blew two engines out of two cars.
Because I was that girl.
Categories:
pasadena, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Free verse
"Thursday's Child"
Saturday She Left
Saturday You Arrived
Tuesday Answers Delivered
Spirit of Ether Speaks
(Lovejoy-Burton/April 2018)
LJ - G - L
”A circle is the reflection of eternity: it has no beginning and it has no end…”
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)
2. http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/forum/f14n02p135_is-aether-spirit-or-matter.htm
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_plane
4. http://pmj.bmj.com/content/postgradmedj/22/252/280.full.pdf
5. https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/the_beginning_of_memory_985070
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo
7. "Thursday's child has far to go...."
8. Music: Goldmund, "Cascade"
https://youtu.be/4OtIzuBthVU
Categories:
pasadena, journey, love, mother daughter,
Form:
Free verse
ROSES
dead of winter
poor rose bush
empty branches
but it pricks me when i pass
just sleeping it says
my son asks
where do roses go in winter
for once i can answer
why to pasadena son
to the rose parade
rose
at fifty she was long gone
she’d pass a flower shop
but at the liquor store make a stop
where she’d pick four roses
Dave Austin
Categories:
pasadena, flower,
Form:
Tanka
Galileo had his turn.
But with much still left to learn
the brown dwarf sat-----waiting.
Then came hubble to the frey.
Seeking in a finite way
the brown dwarf teasing.
Nibiru, if confirmed,
a new planet we have turned
from mystery to being.
7/30/2005 9:36:34 PM Google "Nibiru"
A planet larger than Pluto has been discovered
in the outlying regions of the solar system.
The planet was discovered using the Samuel
Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near
San Diego, Calif. The discovery was announced
today by planetary scientist Dr. Mike Brown of
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
Calif., whose research is partly funded by NASA.
Categories:
pasadena, environment, planet,
Form:
Triolet
Florence McLane
1889 – 1902
Psst… over here!
My toppled tombstone is the one
With the somber seraph carrying a cross.
My grave is the one that no one can see or find.
My hidden final resting place is in the digesting shade
By the willowy walnut tree.
Can you find me?
Olly olly oxen free!
Do you see me?
Will you now hear me?
I breathed my days on Pasadena Street
Inside the little white house with the horseshoe over the door.
I slept my nights under the stars
With dreams and visions and intense remembrances.
My cross to bear bore no semblance
To the old bloody rugged one
Borne by my Lord and Savior to Golgotha.
To my friends and foes,
Dead now for a multitude of minutes.
I sought no pain or revenge.
But your closed eyes never noticed
My own bloody cumbersome cross.
Never truly noticed the tiny ray of pure light
Deep, deep inside my singed soul.
Enveloped and masticated alive
By the deadening darkness of the faithless.
My final words to you all:
Olly olly oxen Free!
Categories:
pasadena, death,
Form:
Epitaph
Pasadena Big Band, On With The Dance
Nostalgic swing, singing the blues
So put on your dancing shoes
Get out of your chair
Dance like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Imagining we are stars in a speakeasy movie
Dancing the Charleston, we're ever so groovy
"CUT", shouts the film director, "next scene"
The music stops, it's the end of the dream
Tea Dance with the Pasadena Big Band
The waitress serves on a silver cake stand
Cup cakes, petit fours and cress sandwiches
Just like in the black and white movies
Categories:
pasadena, america, dance, fantasy, film,
Form:
Quatrain
Pickelina Pickelina, cutest dill from Pasadena
she was hot, she was spicy with a crunch of very nicey
With a dash of cosher dill she was Duken's favorite thrill
was she gherkin was she Vlasic, what a bittersweet dill-emma !
Pickelina Pickelina middle name was Angelina
thought she was a daffo-dill all decked up in lace and frill
Relished moments of pure taste, only needed one to baste
Yes she was the sweetest dill, always dressed to over kill.
Categories:
pasadena, hilarious,
Form:
Rhyme
I do not sing any of the new songs. But I can sing Let the Little Girl Dance.
Teen angel, I’m sorry, It’s now or never, everybody’s somebody’s fool.
Alley-oop, itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini and chain gang.
Poetry in motion, Georgia on my Mind, Little Ole Lady from Pasadena.
My foot is tapping in my car as I drive to I am Woman, Let it Be,
Ain’t no Mountain high enough, Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves!
We’ve Only Just Begun, Call me, Raindrops Keep Fall’n On my Head
Yesterday I noticed I was driving 98 miles per hours to the 70’s songs.
Categories:
pasadena, me,
Form:
Blank verse
Remember all those tea ads with the chimps on?
We’ll prostitute the Prague of Gustav Mahler
and desecrate the divas of La Scala.
Would Bart betray begettor Homer Simpson
(he’s not so much a whoreson as a pimp-son)
to get himself a Chevrolet Impala?
You bet he would. This is the Grab-It Gala.
The cripple pawns the plaster that he limps on.
In Pasadena, Pimlico and Perth,
the only thing we´ll go without is girth.
Where JP Morgan’s played by Colin Firth,
we airbrush self-awareness, muffle mirth,
and drown in plenty, blink at moral dearth.
We're always prizing price-tag, never worth.
Categories:
pasadena, satire,
Form:
Sonnet
(At 10:40pm on December 8, 1980,
John Lennon was shot and mortally
wounded on 72nd Street, New York.
Given his love of outrageous wordplay,
this poem imagines his stream-of-
consciousness utterings as the
ambulance rushes him to hospital,
moments before his death.)
In my life I've loved them all
Brian, Ono, Victor, Paul
two of us Sunday driving
not arriving
bigger than Christ
you know it ain't easy
do what you darn well pleasy
one banned band for sail
standing on the dock in Southampton
one careful onus
Henry the Ford Cortina
little old lady from Pasadena
like a dog without a bonus
keep playing that rock
and roll music, naughty girl
you let your frock
ride up sorry Mimi
getting steamy
one thing you can't hide
is when you're crippled inside
I'm going to
Strawberry Fields
nothing is real
banter, see, is paramount
tantamount to fantasy
inkspots on the platters
menlove matters
Cynthia fragrant
Yoko flagrant
I saw her standing there
day after day he silently stands
the fool on the hill
with the troublesome glands
seeing the glint from the German bint
when she rattles her jewelry
she's the one with the royal mint
Tom Jones, tomfoolery
Alma Cogan needs a slogan
Cilla Killer she's a thriller chiller
I'm just a jealous guy
what's it all about no reply
Categories:
pasadena,
Form:
Rhyme
I knew it was going to happen,
it was preordained,
so went in my living room,
the furniture I rearranged,
tried a new italian recipe,
on my kitchen range,
hopped on the bathroom scale,
worried about weight gain,
wonder if I'll ever have to walk,
using a cane,
have to start working out again,
to Richard Simmons
and Jack Lalane,
will I start to drive,
like the little old lady
from Pasadena,
with all that road rage,
and get so hot
from the hot flashes,
have to move to Augusta, Maine,
and by the way,
don't you think
they should call it
womenopause for a change?
Categories:
pasadena, change, humor,
Form:
Light Verse
Sir Albert the Egghead was in an arena
somewhere 'tween Frisco and Old Pasadena
Determined to joust with the best of the knights
who'd ever assembled near Frisco to fight
He rode in on a sleek thoroughbred, oh so gallant
Awaiting his chance to show off his great talent
When into the picture a-ripping and raring
Roared Hal the Computer on a steed with eyes glaring
Now Sir Albert the Egghead was deft with a sword
Many a foe, brave and worthy, he'd gored
But Hal the Computer was stealthily stealing
Sir Albert the Egghead's plot to be dealing
A deadly steel thrust into Hal's data system
To render Hal helpless, unless he would miss him
Yet the brainiac foiled Albert's dastardly plot
And cracked the Egghead's brain-shell in two with a bot
What's the point of this story? --to tell you straight out
That machines can joust better than us, there's no doubt!
Categories:
pasadena, computer, conflict, fantasy, men,
Form:
Rhyme
i saw you in a dream in pasadena when i found an old miniature tape recorder hidden in the
wall. that day i went to photograph the orange wall surrounding the estate reclaimed by
the government and chain-linked fence to keep me out
that night i tried to do a pink-fenced painting, only to keep seeing figures of you
popping out in all directions
in 1980 i married the person
in front of that
orange wall.
Categories:
pasadena, adventure
Form:
Lyric
Cantina Tina never met one meaner
Though she sure looked pretty as the night grew long;
And so did I, in the mirror of the john.
Bottom of the bottle is where the grass is greener.
A Skid Row guy with an eye for Pasadena;
Spend my nights between seventh and third
With old Jack D ’til the world is blurred.
Bottom of the bottle is where the grass is greener.
Out of County jail for a misdemeanor,
“No sir, Judge won’t be doing that no more;”
Hot foot it down to the nearest liquor store.
Bottom of the bottle is where the grass is greener.
Once had a girl, oh boy, you should have seen her
“It’s poker, pool, or me if you want me staying here:”
So yes, I went ahead and chose the boys and beer.
Bottom of the bottle is where the grass is greener.
So here I am, eyeing Cantina Tina
She’s sure looking pretty as the night grows long;
And so do I, in the mirror of the john.
Bottom of the bottle is where the grass is greener.
Categories:
pasadena, addiction, conflict, drink,
Form:
Rhyme