In the flat bed of a pickup in Santa
Monica a tall trussed Buddha gilt but guilt-free faces backwards
slowly moves up Wilshire Blvd. along to
Sunset destined for a ritzy garden or private temple. Ersatz
or the real McCoy? The warning cry of an electronic bird’s loud
chirrups cuts the morning as we try to
cross the road against the red,
rivaling the true bird’s song among the palms, the decadent overblown
hibiscus, luxurious and viscous, that
borders the sea. A cyclist piston-pumps
his legs to power
his wheels, up and down, instead of
making the pedals go round. My mean
friend Karen’s mysterious
footprints in the Venice sands are
narrow as a deer’s. She swishes along
diaphanously in her stylish
ankle-length Northern Californian
floral black chiffon city slicker business skirt, refuses to make
any concessions to being on the beach
spontaneously in soft smog-greenish Guardi
light. My other
friend Jules’ body, a bicycle, its
curious side-to-side loping motion when she walks or reads she stands
somewhere between wolf and Latin dancer
as she lilts to the music of her own poem, her lean lithe
jockey figure and Joan of Arc eyes
grown wide with her imagination, both competent and stylish
she’s apt to forget where she’s parked
the car. We three conjoined together in
a distant city to share
each other’s spaces easily, fairly,
familiarly. Gales of love and laughter
overflow us as we mince
our way past gate signs reading Armed
Response on Schwartzenegger and Stallone lawns,
cops
reluctant to tell us where the john is,
suspicious of our out-of-townness and
other-worldliness. Do
they suspect us of rapid drug deals
going down in sordid beach cubicles? Our
fevered San
Francisco brains already team in their
way-altered poetic grooves. Our joint
poems beat to the
Triadic sporadic tonic sounds we make.
More platonic and diatonic than dominant or flamboyant
but the cops don’t know this with their
extra heavy beltloads of bullets slung to their hips,
as they swagger down Third Street
Promenade shifting the homeless, the proverbial shiftless.