I bite into the apple of new downtowns
sweet against my tongue
feed car through deserts to find
myself toward perceived oases
los angeles in the middle of a drought
of ideas guitars strum
the streets & make a new city
to be lost in
(originally published in First Literary Review – East, Summer 2020)
In my living-in-my-car days I wandered the country wild
and thought often of my mom, slipping anew on the verge
in waking nightmares: silhouette with angled knife at
my car window. Never peace, even in sleep, though I
was lucky, had a roof, silver shining. A Ford Fiesta
occupied. I’ve had a house broken into but I wasn’t there
so it never felt like it actually happened, and the thief
took nothing I could remember missing except the mirage
of having control. But living in my car I knew separation
only by windows, fragile and claustrophobic. I slept in the
backseat and thought that would give me an extra second, if
needed. Sleeping in Walmart parking lots I hoped to be
able to see my mother again and I lied on the phone,
verbally lowering crime rates for cities I slept in.
(originally published in Ghost City Review, Spring 2020)
so much depends
upon placement
an 8-ball
between stripes
at the edge
of a hole
a drunkard
aims the stick
knocks in
loss
with unbuttoned
cuff
(originally published in Door Is A Jar Magazine, Spring 2020)
Our world is made
of water, of sadness.
Blue hues in a
supermarket’s faces.
Green bills,
blue hills.
These are wings of sky,
the mechanics of flight:
sidewalks float bugs
that gently illuminate.
There are no more
fireworks, only quiet
landing of legs
onto concrete,
the resting a belief
you do your best,
you try.
(originally published in The Sunlight Press, 2020)
I steep myself deeper
into the capitalist game
the rubber hoodoos
of the rack
complicity is my zippered mouth
and I walk with papercut
cardboard out through
a parking lot of gnats
I open heavy squealing doors
to place waste in a dumpster
floating on a non-potable puddle
(originally published in borrowed solace, Winter 2019)
plastic cups
pepsi seeds
dandelion dumpsters
pickaxe
shovel dig
our potholes
drought soil
vegetables
waiting hoping growing
(originally published in Peeking Cat Poetry, Winter 2018)
Since I first saw your face
shine from a stage and again
in desert sun and through cool,
desert night, you always felt right.
We are soaked now in swimming
pools and sands pooled near
the coastline’s swaying smile
that thrums for us; and here,
water kissing submerged feet
anchored in each other.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Winter 2017)
The city was dead when we went
so we intended to fill ourselves
with black magic found
in skeletons on the street.
Look how roots of fallen
trees meld with earth.
Go where lines still meander
on your palms–
we did not share with ghosts
when we reached the end,
no words whispered into steam
of dim lights and Darjeeling,
no further graffiti for your blue
telescope eyes peering through time
to the origin of your cosmos, when
your essence poured from your sleeves
but carried less starlight than it does now.
(originally published in The Stray Branch, Spring 2018)
At the foot of the staircase to the stars–
in the back of the line of actors drunken
from delusion (I’m going to make it),
each of us with hands full of hangers,
heads full of the fame
that glimpses a star, a familiar face,
how we chosen ones flicker
on living room screens
of friends and families–
a blip, a blur so brief
we were almost never there at all.
(originally published in The Piedmont Journal of Poetry and Fiction, Winter 2017)
I.
stationary at the couch by the window over the street the cars move unseen beneath me in lines in some complex order that means they don’t crash into each other the sound of engines is replaced with repetitive 4/4 pop music snare singer pleading for her lover to return but in Los Angeles who do you return to
II.
locks click from storefront doors a Chinese family appears from behind the off-white pillar the mother in loose pink flowy shirt and dress takes a photo in front of the window her daughter in a white-and-red striped shirt her husband in a blue-and-pink striped shirt so much pink so many binding stripes and the mother captures that lone moment the sky a tender backdrop
III.
a grandma walks a black stroller and makes a soft kind of train noise shh guh shh guh in syncopated beats as she travels in circles the rolling sound of the stroller-like luggage in an airport constant whir her mouth a muted hi-hat to some imaginary beat on her third pass-by the baby in pink stirs and she stops her mouth’s percussion and tends to the baby who is quiet but lifts her arm in the air silhouette to the window of the world cookies and cream loose leggings
IV.
a man in his fifties eats macha ice cream alone near Dillard’s walks in front of a blonde man in a cowboy hat water bottle in hand tying his shoelaces the ice cream man on the other side of the window underneath the Westside Center sign stares at his reflection he moves from the window bits of cone now lodged in his graying mustache
V.
the green palms reflected on the speckled cream floor ripples in a pond blow so gently outside a man with twenty hands and countless fingers dances and puppeteers
VI.
two Mexican women with glowing purses hanging on their right shoulder walk in near-unison one just a half-step ahead until the fast one stops to fix her shoe before walking into Nordstrom glass door squealing open at its most open it sounds like a bad brake on a car the other keeps walking
VII.
older man in a reddish shirt has a chocolate cone at 11:45pm stands on the wide black stripe on the floor in front of the imposing silver pillar that splits in the middle like a buttcrack he stands licking staring forward at TVs that advertise movies now playing in the theaters of his daydreams
VIII.
half of the iPhone billboard outside would be indiscernible half white space stubs of fingers touching green fabric in a lazy V the space below it a half-globe of nothing the squeaking of shoes slowly silence the man in blue beneath as he does not even notice I watch as he tucks his manila folder under his left armpit
IX.
mountains are indiscernible from buildings in the distance curved with specks of white that hint at strange windows or a deepening mist that seem to want to envelop the rest of us and how do we know it won’t
X.
a faraway pedestrian timidly crosses the intersection illegally she slows but proceeds and from my vantage point she crosses to the smell of the soy in the pad see ew that steams in front of me
XI.
the light which hangs above these walls of shades of gray is latticed in spiderweb I cannot tell if the gentle sway-shaking is imaginary or earthquake all these little triangles hovering jittering above me I wonder if this is how the universe actually moves or what it truly looks like
XII.
upside-down reflections of walking legs move as the inverse of walking and sway with a sexy air voluminous breeze parting moving away in a regal but aimless sashay
(originally published in The City Key, Spring 2016)