Lalo Kikiriki

The Cecil B. DeMille Memorial Cloud Formation of September 2010

The clouds spelled out "GOD"
over Laughlin Park tonight.
I thought some preacher had hired
a sky-writing plane
for a moment,
as the slow-dissolving letters
drifted behind the observatory domes.
But no, this phenomenon
over DeMille Drive
was as natural
and unexpected
as the cloudburst that hit Eagle Rock at noon
or the famous
double rainbow yesterday –
rare enough to make the evening news
in Hollywood.
Could it be the "greater powers"
are trying to make a point?
"GOOD JOB!" or
"WAKE UP"
or maybe just,
"Take your eyes off the paper
for a minute –
remember?
the sky?"

Tim Tipton

RADIO LAND

It was a slow and quiet Saturday night
I listened to the radio for a time
When I climbed into bed
I realized I left it on
I was too tired, in need of sleep
So I closed my eyes
Night swallowed me whole
the house sailed west on a wave of dreams
When I woke up
I felt a kinship to the voices
After that night, I slept with the
Radio, talked to the radio,
Disagreed with the radio
I believed in a far-a-way
Radio land that I would never
Find, doomed to only prowl the
Air waves forever, ever seeking
Some magic channel
For now I would have to settle
For just listening.

Rosalee Thompson

AVA GARDNER IN AFRIKA

There she was
beautiful, not perspiring
secretly pregnant
in the middle of Afrika
Riding the rapids with tribesmen and hippos
shooting rhinos
to impress her man

There she was
another time
beautiful, not perspiring
telling her confession to the visiting priest
Bless me father
I'm a party girl
well, you couldn't hear her sins
but she was bad
till she fell in love
with the big game hunter

There she was
never perspiring
surrounded by beasts and big eyed Afrikans
propped up
always pretty
not really even a gardener
not even an academy awarded actress
just a different kind of slave

Mark Dixon

DEPARTMENT STORE DAYS

Cool
quiet
spacious
spotless carpet
soft fluorescents
a chime
repeated softly
from the ceiling
bong
bong

Mannequins
styled for 1962
smartly fashioned
always white

Elegant background
of soothing Mancini
gleaming escalators
fake travertine marble
and lots of cold
hard
cash

E. R. Sanchez

VU'S VOYAGE

A small, tired, packed, rickety,
wooden boat creaks,
people of all ages,
legs cramp,
shoulders bump,
forced to stand the Pacific.

They see the sun rise and dip
on a limitless pale blue canvas.
Their eyes eager to see a coastline
not armed by Viet-Cong.
Each glances into each other's pupil
connected by a bridge that cracks under the current,
every night closes like it is the last.

Blinded and deaf to their crying,
some realize the weak are useless,
so they must walk with shaved head shame.
The air, overrun by salt,
floods their tongues with want.
The feast, stains the diners black-red,
ruining their conscience with suicidal guilt.
Surviving skulls must be shaved,
hair falling on their full stomachs.
The boat is close to empty.

An exhausted, crude, makeshift, wooden boat, creaks,
everybody cries as they near the shore,
most cling to the blood-stained wood,
all walk with shaved head shame.

Foreign eyes are curious,
but no one asks.
Peace soldiers shoo them into assimilation camps.

The boat people must grow out their hair,
though they protest through tears,
wishing everybody was here,
to cry
together.

Poet-broker (AKA Ed Rosenthal)

24 HOUR SHINE

Developers are tinkering with a tinsel town toolkit,
chiseling clues from foundations of urban places.
They've tightened up synergy in boulevard spaces
and smoothed diverse urban energies into grooves.
The past is honored in Egyptian and Pantages restorations.
The future is grounded on the rails of three transit stations.
At night workers race to bars over walk of fame pavement,
then throw off their shoes in lofts above rail tubes.

The barely lit sun shines on reborn deco buildings
where youth rests before stumbling past steamy cafes,
up to loft offices or down Hollywood and Vine escalators
to catch red neon Metro to Downtown or San Fernando gigs.
Looking back above them at see thru towers, where elevators
mix women in nurses whites with sisters in St. Johns knits.

Eric Lawson

NOW WITH MORE EWOKS

My childhood has been repackaged
I thought while shopping for
birthday gifts for my relatives
Everything that was cool when
I was a kid is back in style
All the toys
All the lunchboxes
All the tee-shirts
All the catch-phrases

and yet

The movie remakes pale
The toys are made cheaper
The tee shirts are retro
rip-offs, and utterly unoriginal
New glossy covers encase
classic works of literature
New rose-colored glasses
are handed out at the malls
Is money the new messiah?
I want to scream in revulsion
at the absurdity of it all

but then

I saw it The Ewok Village Play Set
"Now with more Ewoks"
proclaims the neon sticker
I pull my hat down lower
I swipe my trusty credit card
and race home to relive
my childhood again and again
Because now I can afford it
I can afford to stave off
the onrushing train of future
while spending my present
glorifying my past with joy