We drifted onto Tamarind’s airbed and breakfast,
with an old polar bear lying guard the floor,
who’d nearly hanged himself just days before.
Katie ushered us through the gate.
Sidelong eyes, sincere smile.
Their policy? Doors open.
New-old friends lived inside.
We nestled in the guest-room, bumped the day and the night
held court on the patio, and hailed passers-by.
We marveled at their warmth, at their welcome benign.
‘How do we make friends? We say “Hello!”’
Miss Anna walked her dog, her neck in a brace.
Sir Lawrence took her arm, keeping her pace.
Phil jangled out hope, hunkered down in a cove.
Dennis snapped off shots in search of a forest fire treasure trove.
Lawrence warmed our souls.
Phil rang in the new olds.
Tracy’s now loves the sun.
Anna’s neck brace is shunned.
Tracy dons tights most the time, as do I.
We don’t have it easy, but we grin and we cry.
I once caught her Ricky. He caught me by surprise
when he asked for a hand in trade for humble pie.
The Angry Poet from Conan. Pootie Tang was my jam!
He’d tweaked with C.K. and Maron. He’d sucked dick for heroin.
But we all need a hand ‘cross the road now and then.
A floor up on the balcony they shot dice until dawn:
rattle, rattle, splatter, ex-Soviet chatter.
Then we’d locked ourselves out, were adrift on the lawn,
and their 2:00 a.m. rescue salved our crapulous qualm.
Meanwhile P. Bear drifts away on an Elysian glacier.
He could really cut a rug, really tied the room together.
We sense his absence deeply, but petted him infrequently.
Corrin spoke the Queen’s, towered regal, walked the dog,
drew a mob to nom curry, downstage Elvis Thai.
Muhammed trained his princess with patient, calm sighs.
He slept a little, filmed a lot: serenity now, passion high.
Rigby ran loops around anyone nearby.
Mark sang his praises, steadied totters, hands high.
Kellydawn said no ‘NO’s, taught us how to say ‘Hi!’.
Then Rigs walked the grownups, kept the neighborhood tied.
The Pork Munchies are watching
The dogs stoop to waft P. Bear’s memoirs,
Stories not told, but interred, written roadside in the dirt.
“Los Angeles de los Franklin: so haute all the time.”
Ol’ PBear hustled hard, defined his hood, held his yard.
And now I give pause, I look north to the hills.
My familiar-tree flits and thrives in the winds.
Then the garbage man cometh:
Arma-dumpster-fucking-geddon!
So that’s why pigeons shit on us.
I’d often wondered; it’s now apparent.
“Let’s try another option.”
“Can we do something different?”
“What else could we do?”
“I dig your moxy; but cigars are for closers.”
That last one was me,
and the rest paraphrased Kd.
All I mean to say’s is
I’ve learned volumes in these dayses.
I took Vinyl Communion here
after a dozen fitful years.
It spun from a black wafer
sang a sermon for our ears.
Scott exorcised demons from Lou Reed’s Transformation.
We reveled in his telling of angelic indignation.
I sat spellbound on a stool
drinking wisdom I had missed
less Snapchat, more Velvet
underground. Give your spirit a kiss.
A Slim Tributary
A debate once sprang out,
all from the same side.
It turns out we’re all feminists:
Shelby, she, and I.
The Goddess once reigned
and we’ll raise her again.
Trump’s card is played out,
Hill’s cresting their bout.
Shelby, our Mayor, our savior and host
he leavens our spirits,
bakes muffins, roasts potatoes,
sprouts friendships, makes loafs.
He doesn’t toast, wouldn’t boast,
but he’s a star shining through
those angels' fallen smog, through their shrouds of falsity
our prince and our pauper surveilling the city.
We can’t be all present, all gift, all the time,
but Shelby is on it, long shrift, no rewind.
I couldn’t be more grateful for my time on Tamarind
with all these mindful, wondrous, extraordinary humans,
with all these characters sublime:
Los Angeles soaring in the hill-bottom wind.
Outtakes on Franklin
An aside from ago, askance, and down under,
we sowed our wild oats as we surfaced from asunder:
we cooked rice with Kely Lyons
while her writer ran with coy-otes.
Gerald manifested Mother’s demons as
Marisol heaved his dreams of cretins.
I remember the stars, nebulous and forming.
I remember Justin Long: sauced, prostrate, and foaming.
I remember le trashcan — or something français—
and that tempering chill of the Oak Gourmet.
First day in town I got stopped by a crew
Filming an empty nester’s street interviews.
“Have you seen this man, our son?”
I had: Shane Carruth, or so he resembled.
I strolled on, folding their flier as I reassembled.
Gelson’s fed us well, each checker a courtesan.
At Local a meatless reuben touched my heart/tongue.
The Birds roosted flocks of drunk, sloppy seagulls
to the thrill of Pork Munchies, just as sloshed, not as regal.
Franklin and Co., thanks for housing our strife
and feeding our habits in the powerful wake
of one intensely inimitable, inexorable ex-wife,
whom I espouse and enamor with all of my life.
Which brings me to O, the 'i' in my 'oui'
She sponsored this saga, she sanctioned its speech.
She steered us to and through this fair City
always under fire, and always amidst siege.
We fled north for a stretch to Ol’ Frisco by the Bay,
but the winds were too misty, the bro-dawgs too techy.
The tap water was fresh, but a mite too Hetch Hetchy.
So we rang our return to SoCal for the 4th
with Chicago orchestral at the Hollywood Bowl.
Then downtown on a rooftop
we watched LA pop off,
like God clutching sparklers
in strip malls and ghettos, patriot droves.
Fare well ain’t no good bye
This tale ties up past, and leaves future agape.
In the Arts District we’ll nest, at last least we can sprawl.
Yes, we are artists! Just like you. Aren’t you? Aren’t we all?
LA is so big and wide, and awfully girthy, agreed?
Paved with concrete velvet, sometimes gritty, sometimes sleek and slippery.
Long live Franklin, Delano, Benjamin, et cetera.
Long live Tamarind, the kernel of this city.
Cheers to the Mayor, to Kd, to La Poubelle and its flies.
We’ll come back with joy to spread tamarind thigh.
P.S., Hail Xenu or something, and say no to Thetans.
Are we Scientistalists now? Did you get a good reading?
I’m asking for a friend, she’s stricken with intrigue.
We feel the same, also richer, leveled up and some changed.
