Some Kind of Monastery

I am parking the beamer -
got tickets for parking wrong,
and not seatbelt-wearing
(the jackals, the less-than-nots)-
check the gear, pull the brake,
up the windows and wheels
towards the curb,
and a small voice from someplace
higher says, Hey, Boy!

I'm in front of the building
I think is a church
for Asians, from Asia,
or a refugee place,
or some kind of monastery.

The boy in the window (Hey, Boy!)
is his shirt off waving, says:
That's me Andy!

He is thrilled
to be Andy
in the place on the corner
in Echo Park
waving to me,
and I am Hello, Andy!
waving too now.

Nevertheless

Everything you've been running from,
but I know this,
is what you're running toward.

Every constellation
you're trying to escape from under,
is where you're headed.

I met a girl from Canada,
and delightfully informed her friends
that I was from New Jersey,
because they all got a kick,
and I don't know why, Marya,
we push away the ones who love us the most.
I don't know why it is
you can feel so all alone,
and so smothered by familiarity.

When I was young,
I crossed the football field
in winter and saw Orion staring down.
Tonight, on Santa Monica,
I see the same three stars
which make up his belt.

There is no escape from oneself,
from the truth-lies,
from the family friends.
I don't know what we're running toward,
but running is saintly nonsense.

I left the ones
who needed me most,
and changed my name,
and changed my city-state,
but they are still in my pockets.
Every mountain I climb,
the dirt from it gathers
in my shoes and socks
like I'm five again,
or twelve,
or twenty-seven.

And the stars
are still
the same.

I have been fleeing a past,
which is coming upon me
nevertheless,
nevertheless.

Seen at Massimo's

A movie star,
well, as darn cute
as ever there was one,
with her famous boyfriend's mother,
sighing into a non-fat.
Smiling a sad, beautiful, gracious, rote smile,
wearing something.

It is overcast, she's wearing a shawl.
Seen at Massimo's: two top agents,
pissing together in the men's room
with the door
slightly ajar.

Seen at Massimo's: Mexicans

The flame kisses another butt
on the 10 east,
with the navigation system
pouting orders
and the beamer making fresh noises.

Seen at Massimo's: me mixing drinks,
me leaving, me reading the menu
and chatting up two
from Sacramento,
or St. Louis.

Massimo himself
is staring down
in black and white
from the ceiling
stirring us in his pot.
The baby is born.
The gnocchi is prepared
with spinach and riccota,
no potato, and that's different,
and that's why we can charge you
what we will.

Someone double-tipped,
someone paid for the missing
bottle of wine.
The smoky sky,
the Reisling chill
of Los Angeles
of Beverly Hills
the busboy running
to put change in your meter,
your last fifty cents
buys you an hour.

Your last fifty cents
buys you an hour to sit.
Your last meal,
was spaghetti di mais
with chicken sausages and veal.
Your last coast
was the east coast.
Your last coat
is worn.
Your last love
was a movie star.
You held her when she was cold.
Your last meeting
was operatic.
She met your mother,
you served them cafe.
Fifty cents
doesn't buy a cup of coffee.
But coffee makes you warm.

You are the grape,
and the winter which tries the grape,
and the hand which picks it,
and the feet which press it,
and the sommelier who serves it,
and the mother's lips which taste from the bottle,
and the girl who watches
bleeding internally,
and the man who clears the plates.
All this costs.
Someone eats pie.
Seen at Massimo's: corkscrews.

Love

The busboys are between
lunch and dinner
talking about women,
how Asian ones are all about money,
and Italian ones are all about sex.
If you have money, then you're set
with the Asians, and if you can fuck,
then you will never lose an Italian girl.

Sicilian men can fuck two or three
thousand women, but not their wives.
American girls like danger.
Be a bad daddy for Americans,
and give Latina women babies.
German girls want your mind alone.


I ask for more information.
They say,
Love is unearned.
Love duplicates
itself and breaks you,
and you are grateful.

You are in a room alone.
You are in a room with your lover,
naked, angry, lit.
You will fuck and fight,
forgetting to remember
the breath in winter,
the unexpected bumps,
and the, Oh, she's got my number.

What does love owe me?
No answers.
You will not deserve them.
Love is undeserved,
don't do, don't ask.

You will still be itching afterwards.
These wounds don't close,
they needs be cauterized.
This rash,

this bleeding will stop
at length, and you will mourn its absence.

You will not die of love,
and that will be the tragedy.
The tragedy will be it didn't kill you.
The tragedy of love is that you live.

Graceful Wah

Who's got it now?
Why sing in the shower
if you're not getting paid?

Why smile, if your teeth are brown?

My father wound is gaping.
I should have known from all the
songs you were obsessed with;
even granddad saw it coming.

All the butts in the ashtray,
canceled dreams, if they came
in tubes of cancer.

And the beer cans,
you know this,
the rocks glasses,
the toilet paper.

Though some people don't like to think
about it.

We're inside.
It seems I have committed a crime,
or some act of fraud,
because no one's around anymore.
I'm the one who left.

Saturday is New

I've returned to the twin palms,
and they've been gossiping about me
ever since.

Back to the endless strip,
of taco stands and gas stations,
and hidden marvels
in the hills.

Returned, I have,
with nothing
again, but feathery thoughts,
and enamel wishes.

The hunter has returned,
from his sabbatical/imprisonment
in the city of spires,
to the city of holes.
From the asphalt jungle,
to the tropical wasteland.
From the melting pot,
to the griddle.
From man to woman,
and back again.