Lament for Southern California
Another deep night in southern California,
Trapped inside of Redondo Beach,
Rap music echoing throughout the halls,
Neighbors banging on the doors around me,
I am solitude standing,
Listening to the rhythm of people breathing,
Taking in the scenes with all of my senses,
I am alive,
But half awake,
Lost in an instrumental dream, remembering the clanging of the drums,
And the strumming of a guitar,
Thinking of her gentle strokes in the night by candle light,
The love in her eyes, the shield behind which I chose to hide.
Nothing is making sense to me,
Why am I all alone, listening to Dizzy at 7 pm,
Instead of with my friends?
Holding them as my brothers,
Why am I not at my mother’s?
Listening to some advice and eating a home cooked meal?
Why am I not at my father’s grave?
Bearing him flowers and poems, thanking him for this moment,
For this life, and shedding a tear for his triumphant return.
There is madness,
Could you feel it ?
There is sorrow,
Didn’t you say that you cried because of it?
Somewhere across the globe,
I can feel all of the people dying,
As America flies it’s peaceful birds,
And brings upon someone else the rage that we all have grown up knowing.
Somewhere in the night,
Allen and Walt are making love at the feet of God,
Begging admittance to heaven,
Or at least a place where they could compare beards as lovers and
Compadres in the word,
Late night lament for the moments and the dreams that slipped by into yesterdays,
To the janitors who sweep the empty floors, thinking of their wives and kids,
Alone at home dreaming of better lives and better times.
Late night remembrance to my mother who shed her life for me to breath,
Who is being held by love, cradled by the sense of renewal it brings,
Late night moment for my self,
And my confused notions, the onset of spring,
And the farewell of winter- Give me one more rainstorm,
One more place in the gray clouds of a storm,
Let me touch thunder again, experience the brilliance of your lightning.
True children lie on their backs in the middle of a field,
Somewhere deep in my subconscious,
They hold their mouths open and their backs planted in the mud.
They catch raindrops on their tongues and speak of love in between breaths.
Bleak night in the gut of southern California,
Tired souls come in from work and plant themselves on their couches,
To catch up on the TV watching they missed.
Some drive straight to the bars and try to tie one off,
Before the wives call for them to come home.
In this mystery, in this sadness,
I am alive somewhere,
I can feel the pulsating of my heart,
The beating of my eternal clock,
The missing fragments of myself that I left on the road to get to this place,
And the missing moments, that I was too drunk to remember,
Or too high on her to try and live.
Lost in the endlessness, I carry this slow burning torch for my brother and my sister,
How doomed were we to be born with this blood,
That has driven us all insane in our own separate ways,
In those moments when we find ourselves alone, drunk or stoned,
Sitting up in bed awoken from a nightmare.
How doomed were we, to watch father die and mom go insane.,
How doomed we are to be the same thing,
To live for ever on the brink of madness and celebrate the beauty of excess.
How doomed we are for the blood under our skin,
Nothing to celebrate in your dark dreams,
Even our angelic visions come to us in screaming nightmares.
How doomed we are.
Lament in the stillness for the silence in the night I hear now,
The music has ended, the kids are safe in their bed,
And a fresh bottle of Merlot has been cracked and a new cigarette lit.
I think of you in your foreign land,
Traveling through as many places as possible,
Tackling all of those things that make you go insane,
Trying to move faster then sound, or memories,
Hoping that nothing can catch you now.
The desert must be magnificent tonight,
Milky way skies opening up the gates of heaven,
As you shuffle in the door bearing witness to the end of love.
The stars must be brighter where you are,
I can tell by the sound in your voice,
You seem more connected these days,
And it is hard for me to tell you that I am proud of you,
But I am.
I hope that you stay strong my soulmate.
I hope that you stay strong.
Beauty in the innocent eyes of the child I once was,
When I sat in class looking up skirts and laughing to myself.
Beauty in the eyes I once had,
When I looked at my father with so much love,
And vowed to never caress his ways.
The beauty in my eyes when I woke up crying,
The beauty in my soul,
When I did all that I was told,
And ran for miles free, happy and alone.
I miss that child I once was,
The day dreams I would have,
The glorious visions and visitations I would have with invisible strangers,
The joy I experienced in the back yard,
Tossing the ball with my brother, making believe that we were pro football players.
Now that all lies alone in a ditch buried next to my father.
We are too old to go back,
To young to try and carry on.
Beauty in the eyes of my friends when we sat up till dawn writing poems,
And being furious about the world we wanted to live in ,
And going over the ways that we would change it.
Beauty in our eyes,
As we listened to our idols preach to us and teach us the righteous ways,
When in the end we found it all to be a marketing ploy,
God himself has a million dollar deal with the devil,
For all of us to play into.
I have seen far too much,
I know far too much,
But I am still as stupid and as dumb as all of you.
Lament !!! lament !!
Beauty !! Beauty !!
You wild buzzard flying over my head, trying to take a shot at my heart,
And all of the things that make me whole,
Have I not left enough for you on this page ?
Have I not left enough of my blood in this ink for you to nibble on,
If not then the beat will go on,
The words will try to rise above all of this chaos and dismay,
Listen closely to the sound of the crickets where you are,
To the pitter patter of the rats in the sewers below you,
They know the truth,
And have greater stories to tell.
I will try to sleep tonight and sleep well,
But I think of all that is happening around me,
I am always seeing things that others miss,
Like the ghost catching his reflection in the mirror,
Or fading beauty in an old woman,
Like setting suns in each corner of the world.
Portland you call me,
I can hear you,
Arizona, I beg you ,
Bring me your dry desert air,
Your glorious skies,
I am waiting for you.
The Atlantic ocean,
Bring me your dirty salt,
Mix it with mine,
We will make a great pair,
And somewhere between all of these places,
In between the lines in the road,
I will find my hope,
And my eternity
I had just read Howl for the first time, sat down with a glass of wine and proceeded to compose what to this day is still my favorite poem I wrote. It was done in about 10 minutes in one single burst at a laptop. When I was done, II jumped from the chair crying with elation. The voice ( I felt) had been found. Obviously much of this is about my family, and the feeling of doom I felt at that time. There are many references to Arizona and the “soulmate” – I was great friends with a woman there who was going through some tough times with her boyfriend. We met totally by accident, but fostered an incredible friendship. The last stanza is me wanting to run away, the answers to my life had to be “out there” – all of the cities and places mentioned here are actually places where my friends currently were living. It is a poem about loneliness, rage and the desire to escape Southern California
