A Venetian Afternoon

Beneath the sun's ravenous rays, brilliantly hued crowds mingle on the Venice Boardwalk. Self-proclaimed rap gods stand, sweating, trying to press disinterested millennials to take their mix tapes. Paint-splattered artists squint out into the mingling conglomerate. Sometimes, if they are working, they are surrounded by the curious and appreciative.

It felt fine to walk along sandy pavement, with the scent of the sea in the air. Every so often I would lift the edges of my silk shirt, or my shorts, to exclaim ruefully at the deepening tan lines I found. It brought an odd sort of satisfaction to watch myself become striped brown and deeper brown. The friends I walked with, who were showing me around LA that day, could trace their ancestry into more Northerly lands, so their complexions were better preserved. Ah, well...

At the famous skate park I found love. With everyone and nobody. Once one of them jumped so high in the air that the crowd pressed eagerly against the rails gasped, applauding when he landed, although there was a moment of uncertainty after, when he teetered precariously on his board. From a distance most of them looked very young. It surprised you, then, when they came nearer and you could make out the shadows on their jaws, the maturity in the muscularity of their shoulders.

Even when they miscalculated, they were graceful. Even if they lost their footing they seemed to step rather than fall off. It was a rough, careless elegance. The ones that weren't showing off were huddled around, grinning, or smoking blunts openly. The smell of weed was delicate sometimes, and sometimes it was overpowering. It lingered like a man's cologne, following us back to the Boardwalk, where it was joined by a larger cloud of the scent. Everywhere we went reeked of the stuff.

Reluctantly, we left, and headed back towards Santa Monica by way of the Boardwalk. I was some three hours away from home, yet the same dustiness was there in the sunlight. The sand was familiar, although I think sand in Southern California must be the same everywhere.

I dropped my change into the collecting jar of a homeless man playing an old Skip James song. He was very good, so I dug deep into my bag and came up with a dime and three pennies. I gave them to him, sorry I didn't have more. The deep furrow between his eyes softened when he smiled, his eyes an astonishing lack of color.

The smoke shop played a Led Zeppelin song, and I was sorry I couldn't patronize them too. They had a piece shaped like a carrot, but I had no use for it.

I paid a little too much for a bathing suit because I had forgotten to pack one. It was of very flimsy material- nothing about it warranted the price I paid for it, although it wasn't that much. The old Mexican gentleman who sold it to me was liberal with his flattery, which was administered with only the barest trace of sincerity. To my intense annoyance, the sun retreated before I could make good use of the suit, so I defiantly wore it in the rain.

That's the sort of person I am.

For lack of a better, more graceful ending:

Peace. I'm out.

Palm Tree Wasteland

The hours pass like cars in traffic
so that the day is stuck between noon and evening.
A hundred thousand watch it founder,
with eyes dulled and sleeves rolled to the elbow.
The air is no great river, as it can be-
so sharp is the smell of dust and perspiration.

This is a strange place,
a forest of steel and palm trees and neon signs,
half flickered out.
Carpeted in dust and sin,
it beckons the dreamer,
seduces and binds the hopeless.

It is the land of diamonds
It is the land of starving starlets.
In its heart of hearts
is a wee orange apartment who houses
a flat, marvelously outfitted with a screened window
that lets in the dust
and this sunless heat.

One orange jumble of plaster
in a sea of the lost and seeking.
It is where the cars pass like hours in a long day.