Los Angeles

I move through her streets
like a lovers hands move over a beautiful woman’s body;
slowly, observant, passionate…
But my starlet has seen her fall from grace.
She has become the whore at the end of the bar.
The woman once stunning in her prime,
once courted by the world,
now weeps;
laying in her old satin nightgown…alone.

Her breast’s sag,
her eyes and mouth cracked with lines
from years of squinting in the limelight.
She lays awake waiting for salvation.
As the Santa Anna’s blow
you can still catch a hint of sweetness,
her soft perfume sifted through picket fences of litter.
I pick up the trace and I close my eyes.
I see her as she was,
and I see all the men who used her.

I make my way to the east side
and I see her tattoo’s.
I see the faded ink pulse
in places most dare not look.
But I caress her and I kiss them,
she looks away but,
I can still see the shame in her eyes.
I tell her to forgive them,
for they know not what they do.
They are the new legs in a fading revolution;
…her disenfranchised children.
They rebel against their mother
and blame them for the way their lives turned out.

I continue to caress, to wander, to journey.
I move though her and trace the track marks.
I kiss up and down her arm,
and I tell her she is not alone.
Forgive them,
your beauty frightened them.
They turned away from their mother,
feeling undeserving of her love.
…But with a word she accepts them back with open arms.


We have slept at her feet,
we have wept in her arms,
we have howled at the moon,
and passed never ending bottles of whisky.
She has made us and we have made her.
And, although she is broken
her eyes still burn hot,
red with passion.
Her soul rages inside this used tired body,
and at night she whispers to me.
And she sings for those who are willing
to listen.
She tells us we are her children;
poets, prostitutes, pan handlers….

She tells us her stories and those of her children,
she tells us we are never alone.
She tells us they will beat us,
they will make us feel ashamed,
and they will try to break us,
to extinguish the fire in our eyes
and the passion in our hearts.
But as long as we never surrender,
as long as we never accept their
cyanide of creativity;
we will always be her children.
And we will always have a home at the end of the world.