LA Poems: Boardwalks & Mulholland Drive
Here are some poems dedicated to the City of Angels! Thanks for reading ❤️
Boardwalks
I have wandered the boardwalks of Coney Island
And I have wandered the boardwalks of Venice Beach
Traveled this vast land to its furthest reaches
Seen the fisherman cast their thin lines in the waves
And heard the seagulls singing at the end of time
Moved from Dreamland to Dreamland
From ruined baths to sordid amusement parks
Seen the brightest cities and the quietest deserts
Seen the wickedest and the holiest sides of man side by side
Sometimes in the same pairs of eyes.
Every road ends at the sea
And every life ends with a return to the underground river
That flows from the tunnels out to the sea.
And in between death and life there are wombs and tunnels of bright light
And at the edge of the land there are boardwalks
With seagulls flying overhead
Children screaming on the sand
Jade waters thrashing against the shore
And a salty wind blowing.
Here at the juncture between one journey and the next
I know I have come such a long way
And yet I feel I am back where I began.
When we are born we are close to the sea
And so it is when we die.
And all that land in the middle
Those wild nights, those opulent towers
Will one day fall into the waves
To one day wash up on a distant shore again.
In the sea is everything that ever happened and everything that ever will
In the water is all wisdom, and all we cannot see
But still sense in the form of prickles on the edges of our mind
Winking like little dots of sun on the ocean
Fragments scattered from a great burning source in the sky.
That water is inside each of our bodies
Animating our blood and cycling through our cells.
At the boardwalk the palm trees are laughing on the shore.
The people passing by talk in many tongues.
The world beckons, the flesh calls, and I leave the water’s edge.
But I will return.
I’ll return over and over
Until one day I will fall into the waves at last
And slip into the primordial darkness.
My body will slide to the bottom with the whale bones and the glowing fish
My spirit will join the dolphins
And my soul will scatter across the universe
Until one day part of me will wash up on the shore
And join with part of you and re-enter the fold.
But for now I’ll return to solid ground
Resume the game, start again.
And yet every time I hear birdsong
And smell salt of sea air
I remember where I came from.
Where I’m going.
Where you are.
Where there’s no me or you.
Just white surf
Soft sand
And blue waters.
*
Mulholland Drive
We climbed up to the top of the hill
and looked out over the city of angels
and you looked at me with bright blue eyes
and I knew we’d come here before
and were always meant to be here.
You kissed me and I tried to hold onto reality
for a moment before realizing it was futile
and I was already free-falling down
into the ocean of you and into
the surreality of a night I’d only seen in films.
You see the world as a movie
and I see it as a song, and we’re just two
drifters without a clue, but I know that
we both just drove across weird America,
and we both love California.
In your arms all these great thoughts
mean nothing, all this talk of death
and ascension feels like a distant wind.
in your arms I am so very human
and for once, I am glad I am.
Because though being human means
we must deal with crushing loss
and brutal time and the infinite futility
of living, it also means that
we can hold each other like this.
For some reason the infinite universe
incarnated us, and it wanted us
to exist as lonesome individuals, always
craving the arms of another
who fits perfectly with us.
It wanted us to feel this loneliness
and this longing, to preen and ache
until now and then we fall into
pristine wholeness that fits
like a memory from before we were born.
You kissed me at the top of Mulholland Drive
and drove me into the sparkling night
and all the meaning I’d been getting at
through shadowboxing and daguerreotyping
was forgotten and I had no questions anymore.
We drank Cosmos at some downtown bar
and talked about getting life is strange tattooed on our legs
because it is — a surreal refraction of some god’s acid trip —
and yet it’s a bit less strange, laughing about it together.
With you, the strangeness seems as soft as the night wind.
And yet the night wind calls
and I had to go, and you had work in the morning
and who knows if I’ll see you again.
But I am sure I won’t forget a thing
and just in case I ever do I wrote this poem.
Wow just Wow