Our California

Poems from Los Angeles County

Impressions

By Emmanuel Cabel

Fist bump!
An awesome way to say "hello,"
In a warm summer morning,
To a fellow Angeleno,
On my way to a Mickey D,
For a good wholesome iced coffee.

Just across the Wiltern Theatre,
Where both the young and elders congregate,
As breakfast should always be,
To meet new and familiar faces,
Which is what's best about my city.

Leaving my gas guzzler behind,
The Metro is what I always seek,
To get across from Santa Monica to Downtown,
Or from North Hollywood to Long Beach.
Always feeling nostalgic to visit an old friend.

It's terrifying to have this whimsical feeling;
Four decades in this city
And only felt a day older!
Blame it on the neon-lit entertainment venues
And the added noise from the crowd.

Los Angeles, never expect utopia
But never a dull moment in every season.
Whether it's the glorious scene
Of the snow-capped San Gabriel mountains
Or the shimmering blue water of the Pacific,

Beauty thrives within the city's
uneven rainy and sunny days.
Amid all the imperfections,
The friendship of Angelenos is special,
From sunup 'til sundown.

Lost in the Pacific

By J.D. Isip

I never thought I’d be so tired.
Jules, St. Elmo’s Fire

Before I was afraid of the ocean,
I’d swim in it. No thought of the depth
or its many ways of killing me. Once
I was young and brave or foolish,
kept going away from the voices onshore
telling me to stay where it is safe, to stay

close to land
close to home
close enough

until it all went silent. Out so far
the voices stop, you look around
and cannot find your way, what seemed
so clear just moments before an impulse
kept you moving in any direction
than the one you knew. When you pass

the shallow waters
the bright buoys
the rope

marking where you should end,
you start to feel tired, the seascape
a cold, black unknown that goes on
forever in all directions, your panic
a ripple on the surface that dies out
before it reaches back to land. Look
up at the sun, catch your breath, listen

for the seagulls
for the clicking pod
of dolphins

who somehow don’t terrify you
even though they are enormous, could
bat you down twenty feet below, could
be you’re too tired to care, could be
it wasn’t dolphins at all. But then
how did you get back? And how can you
explain what it was like out there? Why
you don’t swim anymore.

You’re afraid?
You’re wiser?
You don’t have to.

Silicon Dreams

By Aarav Gupta (8th Grade)

In the heart of Mumbai, where dreams took flight,
My father set forth, chasing hope's light.
Left behind his homeland, with courage as his guide,
To California's shores, where dreams reside.

Through the lens of a child's innocent eyes,
I see my father, with unspoken sighs,
In a land so vast, where palm trees sway,
He sought a new dawn, a brighter day.

From Mumbai's chaos to California's calm,
A journey of courage, a healing balm.
The streets of Mumbai, a distant echo,
As California's winds through eucalyptus blow.

In the glow of orange sunsets, he'd confide,
Of a world so different, where cultures collide.
The spice of his past, now a subtle trace,
In the melting pot of a foreign place.

The taste of samosas gave way to fast food,
Yet the dreams he carried remained eternally good.
In the hum of freeways and the ocean's roar,
He found new melodies, on a distant shore.

My father’s struggles were his alone,
Yet, in his eyes, a resilience shone.
He'd weave tales of Mumbai's crowded embrace,
Now traded for California's open space.

From the spice markets to the Golden Gate,
His narrative unfolded, a tale so great.
In the embrace of redwoods, dreams took root,
A tale of resilience, a journey afoot.

Through the prism of a child's loving view,
I saw my father, strong and true.
In California's glow, a new chapter unfurls,
A tale of an immigrant, transforming the technological world.

In the shadow of Mumbai, a distant refrain,
In the sun-drenched valleys of loss and gain.
A ballad sung by a child with pride,
Of a father who dared to turn the tide.

Are You a Star Yet?

By Annie Wood

time is a divided trophy
i don’t know whose turn it is to shine
my future, my body, my power
is a petty wonder
your love, a backhanded kiss
but i still crave this broken sideshow
this gentle curse,
this public moment
i was born into you
that’s how powerful i am
i am a manifesting master
i picnic under your tall letters
i’m not allowed up here
but i can’t be stopped
peggy stopped herself
in September 1932
our birthdays are only 5 days apart
5 days and 70 something years but still
i know what cutting room floor feels like, peggy
i know your pain, peggy
i know your want, peggy
i know your ambition, peggy
i know i know i know
i got it too
i got it real bad
your gardenia spirit fills my senses and i want so much to make you stay
but we can’t make anyone do anything, can we?
we can sit here under the W together and talk about the good ole days
before the talkies came and ruined it all
before the like and subscribes
before the box in the living room and the robots in the backyard
because more time, in any time, is a last-minute blessing
let’s try and enjoy it, okay?

On Nipton Winter Nights

by Erin Brown (College)

They burn the moon down in Nipton,
beneath massive wheels of welded shopping carts slicing twenty feet into the night sky
and nearby,
sequined dress and knees rosy in the black winds, the dive bar bachelorettes sip cigarettes
and lean on the shiny round hood of a crashed flying saucer, their arms around each other.

I hold a leash, and two dogs and I stand in the middle of the fog-huffing crowd
that has gathered to watch the white box capsule cabin rental window
where a couple,
well-lit in their sweaters and clean matching socks, the very picture of a portrait,
sit on a bed and look back out at us in the dark;
A pair of contrasting, madly assembled art exhibits
amused by each other
and the absurdity of this desert town night.

These are not my dogs, by the way. I am just borrowing them.

In the light of the burning moon we bundle in and out of our tents and campers and cabins and
crowded duffel-packed backseats
wandering steps in the snow reflecting starlight and firelight toward
the tall white yurts and mammoth detritus installations studding this place, sculptures lurching
brobdingnagian in the dark distance.
Inside one of those yurts, a man from very somewhere else, seated in lotus,
engages in complex percussive dialogue with a giant copper gong that sends
the sleepers at his feet
into vivid color dreams that melt their muscles and give soft eyes to the faceless cryptid things stalking their dark-mind places.
Under the statue of the two hands clasping the giant red anatomical heart
is a small bench where four or five lovers huddle and try not to freeze
as they consider tarot cards under the glow of a lone headlamp.

On Nipton winter nights, we burn among the snow, we
bonfires around the moon, we
jagged pieces nursing wounds from long casino weekends and
dusty desert drives and vanishing phone notifications.

Nerves in jangles, I walk the dogs to the edge of town
(only half a mile from the other edge of town)
and we peer down the well-paved road, so firm of purpose, pouring straight toward us from
the gray-lit distance,
as if it was a simple thing
to get to a place
like Nipton.

A peck of Gold

By Kyril Gurgis (4th Grade)

Dust was always blowing about the town, Except when sea-fog laid it down, And I was one of the children told Some of the blowing dust was gold. All the dust the wind blew high Appeared like god in the sunset sky, But I was one of the children told Some of the dust was really gold. Such was life in the Golden Gate: Gold dusted all we drank and ate, And I was one of the children told, 'We all must eat our peck of gold.'

Becoming a Bridge beyond Language

By Michelle Chung

My Colleagues in nine languages in the Unit are
not only having different hometowns each other,
but also becoming a bridge beyond language.

Tagalog, S. says he has his own island in Philippines.
No one has ever seen that kind of island, which is
submerged in low tide, revealed in high tide.
Vietnamese, Mr. C has been in the camp after the Vietnam War.
His merit was fluent in Vietnamese and French.
The portraits he drew as his hobby are unforgettable by time.
Beyond the Killing Fields, a butterfly flew into the Food Distribution.
It happened hums a song in bored air, and then N. found love.
Cambodian, Souvenirs mostly had Angkor Wat engraved on.
O. often went to Russia to visit her mother.
She brought Matryoshka doll or Pushkin Square calendar.
It was the first time to see A.’s writing in Armenian and
a picture of Mount Ararat where had been placed Noah’s Ark.

S. was typing Chinese characters using by tutor device.
Even if her nickname is a millionaire; she is living with a worry.
—What if my daughter with a disability dies before me?
J. who speaks Spanish had Telework at home during the Pandemic
was suddenly disappeared. No one had imagined neither he got stroke nor his posture with one arm leaning on a cane.
Farsi, Z. still runs a Taekwondo Academy. He said he learned Taekwondo from Korean sahbum in Iran. Sometimes he gave demonstrations: the ap-chagi, yeop-chagi, dolyeo-chagi.
I used to wear traditional dress, hanbok in the International Day.
The Korean Wave was displayed on the bulletin board.
The wind of K-Drama, K-Movie, and K-Pop.

LA county, Language and culture is alive and wriggling,
Everyday is the International Day at my work.

Untitled

By Solani Herrera (8th Grade)

My Pomona is an industrial grey
for the cars and trucks that fly
by on the highway

It's red and black for the fever dream
feeling at art walk or night event
when you're slightly overstimulated

It's green and yellow for the warm
sun and cool grass at the park
with your friends

It's a city of brown for its antique
shops, car mechanics, libraries, and
abandoned buildings

It's diverse, inimitable, unique
and beautiful in its own way
reflecting the diverse and beautiful people in it

I'm New Here Myself!

By Diana Rosen

Welcome to California! My name is

Pikachu, a fictional species-host of

sunshine, eager to cheer you up

on this dreary day, so misty, magical,

mysterious; so untypical in this land

of pristine white cloud cover.

Let me show you a grand time!

We'll skip along the beach, pick up

sea glass, that anomalous jewel of broken-

ness, seek those treasures visitors

to my world discard, leave behind, abandon,

as they scurry toward their idea of home.

Stay a while. Would you like to be friends?

Aphrodite

By John FitzGerald

For a good group of words, take the night,

and let it unfold into such a very simple thing

as is impossible to hear,

like rain at a distance, or shore from a cliff.

I’ve forgotten how I feel,

as if run through by light,

I find no further truths.

Attune to air, where sound dwells a moment,

its waves boiled down to an instant, anointed in me.

For days now I have pictured silence

as something meaningful, a story in and of itself.

There, in the loneliness, should be a song,

and here, right here, could go murmurs

or whispers of footsteps forever.

I walk by the ocean where no flowers grow,

because they couldn’t bear the beauty.

I find a white stone that was a mountain when I was a star.

It reminds me we’ll all be sand one day, so I let go,

but we are moved.

Then this woman wades in the tide.

She is part of the sunset, the clouds, the ocean.

The whole horizon wraps around her,

sending me telepathic thoughts of wonder and hope,

till I can’t help but listen for God.

Sounds of Home

By Stina Pederson

Belmont hears the keys, leash, and collar,
quickly sits at attention.
Ready, we go outside.
He sniffs around, marking his territory,
and I hear a familiar chuff chuff,
a sound you don't expect
from a bird
called humming.

A jingling bell gives away Chuck Norris.
The kitten meets us at the fence,
bats at Belmont's nose.
When they grow bored, we head home.

I know LA is home now
because I no longer notice
the loud whir
of helicopters
late at night.

LA MIRAGE

By Julia Knobloch

89 degrees in Echo Park and 68 in Venice, in one hour --
On Mulholland, the smell of warm soil in the dark
cicadas buzzing in the parking lot
sparks on Electric Avenue
palm trees bending in a neon-violet breeze
Grizzlies walked on Abbot Kinney, a mural says
camels, too, roamed between La Brea and the beach
and horses, before they went extinct and then returned
aboard the Spanish ships --
High tide rolls in, the hills are melting near Pacific Palisades
I suppose there was no sweet wine during the Pleistocene
but giant ferns, and mammoths swam to Santa Rosa Island
that floats veiled in moist air, 26 miles across the sea
In his house in Rancho La Ballona, a friend shows me an old map
the land grants pink and yellow --
I think of ancestors and horses, a poster in a vintage store:
Mission bell and fan palms, torch lilies and a Cessna plane
Where was LA, when they first found skeletons in bubbling tar?
Mud and derricks and the same mountain silhouette
no oranges, no studios, no Spanish-style --
On Third Street, garbage twirls along the curb
my purple month of May is almost over
Photos can’t do the jacarandas justice
in real-life and from afar, they seem like brimful clouds
close-up they are gauzy, flimsy petals sprinkling
sidewalks, like every year, like last year
when I crossed the swamps through light blue and green
holding a bouquet from the corner florist
the sunlight golden, as 11000 years ago

Untitled

by ellie bee

we can agree certain cities won’t relent
it’s a tradition of disrespect
remember the hierarchy
remember the hyphen
this takes me back
to rolling on sidewalks
open the politics
i’m getting those sentiments

hello, grocery store parking lot
i once crossed you after parades
you were my sancturary
this destination
it would be my honor
to defend you civilly
long live the san gabriel valley

and these roots don’t provide much to aspire to
but i made my own path
skyscrapers and legal pads
maybe be like my heros
and date the support staff

how many stories could i keep your interest with the difference between covina and west covina and what’s wrong with glendora and a train through san dimas and venues in pomona for community theatre kids

sometimes i swear i was born in the wrong valley
he’s from the intersection of the 5 and the 14
with lions as neighbors, no clusters of cities
i want to take him on a road trip out to Owens Valley
like Mulholland and Eaton at the turn of the century
buckboard and camping and travelling in secret
or we could drive someplace close
save gas
don’t take me too seriously

i know i can make him laugh
and someone should probably warn him
but if he won’t love me back
i’ll just love California
yeah, if he won’t love me back
i’ll just love California

Perhaps History is Only the Stories We Want to Hear

By Brian Dunlap

Contested ground I live on
roots thousands of years old
severed,
but not erased.

Los Ángeles
invented a story it tells the world,
that its residents
are rootless. There is no
there there.

Yet, I was born on this land,
raised in its soil,
feet rooted
in its dirt.

Your legacy hidden beneath myth making
turned stereotypes turned clichés,
inventing a palatable history,
building wealth,
power,
by dividing,
confining,
ignoring.

Peaceful Tongva made slaves
by the Spanish. The LGBTQIA
rights movement began
at the Black Cat Tavern in Silver Lake.
Japanese Americans waiting in line
at the corner of Venice and Lincoln
to be processed, then
sent to internment camps.
Civil uprisings in 1965,
1992.

My whole life
I’ve walked on your contested land.
Your myths unraveling
bit by bit
as we slowly confront
our true selves.

Untitled

By Barbara Osborn

There’s a story going around that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Some days I try not to pay it no mind, but today I brought it up as table conversation over lunch, like, “how are your kids?“ which I’d already asked, so I followed up with “how are you dealing with our state of global despair?“

It’s hard to find despair in his face jovial and gay with a soul patch and bits of fuzz abuzz on his head.

Where is the despair at this restaurant? Our food is beautiful.

But two blocks away in his backyard someone tried to break in and then there was the woman scrunched behind his car smoking meth.

How do I explain this to my kids, he asks.

Or the people taking a shit on the corner in broad daylight?

He needs to go, there’s no place to go, he drops his rumpled pants below his knees and squats. Nobody sees him when he isn’t shitting, maybe he thinks no one will see him when he is.

Stands to reason.

In London people said to me, “I’m so sorry for what’s happening in your country,” holding up a mirror for me, proving that they too can see the vast ocean between our aspirations and our true selves.

Lately I look at other species, dogs, ants, rosemary bushes, and I think why can’t we do it their way, content with enough food, working together, grateful for the wind that keeps us cool, and an occasional glass of water.

What if we are the bottom of the pyramid instead of the top?

What if all the other plants and animals have been watching us over centuries, tearing their hair out, trying to send us warnings, yelling we had it all backwards, the engines were deafening the oceans, that we were awash in our own garbage, but what we really want is one daisy, one song, one sandwich, one companion, one body of water to bathe in, one finger of green to watch grow, the sound of the seagulls at sunset, and the foo fighter nosedives of the hummingbirds.

THAT MOON

By Denise Crosby

A clump of fur in forever sleep
Its sparkle gone like the moon I saw last night.
Once a light but there no more.
Brown, black, white tufts lay under the brush,
Resembling a dog toy from another life.
Days pass without change.
No food for the coyotes.
No sacrifice to the Chumash.
No offering made to the people who were here.
So many people before me.
It hurts.
I stumble.
Then fall.
I listen to the silence.
The absence of malice.
I think of the trees
And the sound of the forest.
I wish I could be more silent.
Less bite, more tree.
Hidden but not sad. Flourishing.
Quietly forgiving of the tears and fissures
The scorched Earth of my soul.
It's not about me.
Instead let's talk about the sea glass,
the black mustard and the orange blossom
That perfumes the night air.
Or the bee that brushed against me as I walked by.
I want.
And waste.
Then cry.
I am far from the Port's mouth
But I can see the harbor seals in the kelp beds.
The sea is calm, the color of slate.
No foam when her waves break and tumble
in their rhythm of silence.
A black head surfaces
From her breathless world,
Then slips back into the salty brine.
I hold my breath as I go under.

(VE)NICE TRILOGY

By Baihu Fāng Peter Zellin 西方白虎 方

Beach Haiku

palms and some people

standing besides each other

watching the sunset

Library Haiku

nature writes a book

inbetween the boulevards

about the blooming

Fame Haiku

no one celebrates

the cosmic discovery

behind the last hill

My Faith in the City (After Emily Dickinson)

By Mike Sonksen

My faith is eternal like the hills, vast like the Pacific --

when they say California is falling into the ocean --

My faith rises in the waves that crest

Up and down the coast

My faith is older than the Redwoods --

when the city burns after

the Santa Ana winds -- I don’t panic,

I trust the everlasting ecology

My faith is deeper than the San Andreas Fault --

even after the earthquakes, my

interior tectonic plates stay rooted

in the Earth

Storms come and go,

but the timeless human soul

is tenacious like a Joshua tree --

all season like an evergreen

Faith taller than Mt. Baldy --

even when the grid locks and helicopters

hover and the streets are hotter than the Mojave

I find my sacred space in the City of Angels

Not even the smell of ash or charged air particles

can bring me down -- I find solace in the sound

of teenagers laughing loudly or seeing

an old lady making it across the street

Faith older than the bones in the La Brea Tar Pits --

The latest televised police chase

or celebrity court case is comedy to me--

I find refuge in friends and family

I have faith in my city --

so even when natural disasters

strike

and the community splits sides --

I know

everything’s gonna be alright

because

it’s always been

My faith is taller than San Gorgonio

I keep faith in the city

I call home

Untitled

By Leah Mendoza (High School Junior)

When we think of California our minds usually go one of two ways

We think the state of opportunity

Or we think the state of crime

Forgetting that it's not all so black and white

"Our California" see your view on California is entirely based on who you are

What color your skin is

What age you are

What job you have

For some California is place with mountains and oceans, a landscape people would kill to see

For others it's a risk to their lives

California for some is a place where your scared to walk down the street

A place where you can't imagine ever walking alone at night

Lord forbid you'd be down the wrong alley, at the wrong time

To see california for only its beauty is a privilege not everyone receives

Most of us live in the small homes smacked side to side

Growing up scared of going to school, wondering if we'll make it back that afternoon

Those of us with some color on our skin wondering if that cop will stop us on our way

Wondering if we'll be able to leave this life of fear and feel safe in our own homes

Our California is beautiful and kind to our privileged

But when you don't have pale skin California can seem like playing a game of will I live or is this how I die

But in those same houses of the neighborhood drive by

There are memories being made

There is someone blowing out candles on a birthday cake

There is a man and woman finding out they'll go from husband and wife to mom and dad

There are children laughing and playing

Someone just got down on one knee and proposed

There is a child reading their college acceptance letter, a hope to escape the violence that surrounds our homes

Within all the bad, there's the opportunity for good

An opportunity to stop being scared and lead a life better than most

An opportunity to escape the violence that suffocates our state

There's good and bad, there's light in the madness

Our California isn't just black and white

Our California is every shade of gray in between

Wild Mustard

By Millicent Borges Accardi

The first jagged spines glimpse

up in the ground after a March slurry

of canyon rain where the water threatened

to tear into the drought-made fragile

banks, cutting away at the unpacked

earth like a broken heart, gouging

away at the cracked flesh of the sides around

narrow edges, carving and churning,

the rapids, exposing the long hidden oak

roots and revealing the black walnut

branches; low and ancient the unnamed

willow already leaning at a dull angle

towards the backyard bridge, The wild

mustard pushes up at the ground, softens

in its sure teeth, breaks open circles

around the stalk, burrowing deeper

and taller as the mustard grows near

all the rest. If left to expand, mustard

can reach three or four feet in height,

with leaves the circumference

of my wrist. My hands are scratched

as I tug to pull the mustard away

from the wet soil that dares to release them

My palms, full of green splinters that I carry

into the house, a fear and hurt that cannot

be wiped away. Mustard, the last to bloom

from all the rest, sensing how things are

this season. The willow already leaning

at a dull angle towards up in the ground

after a late March rain, bringing fresh earth

like a broken heart to the creek, gouging

to tear into the drought-made fragile

banks, the wild rapids, exposing long-ago

hidden oak roots, the narrow edge of rushing

waters, carving and curing as they flow.

The first jagged stalks of wild mustard

are glimpsed near the backyard bridge,

perhaps sensing how things are this season.

The mustard growing near the ancient walnut

as the mustard pushes up at the wet ground,

softening out at the touch of cracked flesh

as large as the circumference of my wrist,

scratching the skin of my hands, mustard,

the last to bloom from all the rest, holding

its new sure teeth, breaking open circles

left to expand, mustard can reach its green

into everything I carry into the house, bringing

some of the soil that dares to release the

mustard from its grasp, my palms, full of soft

creek banks, cutting away at the exposed

branches; low and shaky the unnamed

horrors of sharp mustard grows near

all the rest of the other plants as I tug back

to pull leaves away from around the stalk,

the roots burrowing deeper and taller,

born of a fear that cannot be washed away

California

By Seth Kronick (College)

For Natalia

On the opposite coast
three-thousand miles from home,

the curls of your hair
take me back
to the beaches I’m used to;

your flowing orange pants
remind me of California sunsets
welcoming dusk along the coastline;

your smile reminds me
of life underneath the palm trees
where cares are light and worries are few.

Ritual

By Helene Cardona

I meet my friend the seagull on the rocks:

mesmerized by ocean, we share this ritual.

I feel wind through my hair

adore me like never before.

It keeps waking me, taunting

me, blowing love’s echo in the night.

Just me and time is all it takes.

Eternity swallowed that simple.

How I disappear in azure eyes.

Words pulsate in my blood,

I can read ad infinitum,

wishing the road never ends.

Softness and power I cannot resist —

hunter and hunted in one —

beauty flows through you, overwhelms

and delights me to insanity.

The sky fills with hundreds of birds

who witness the sun steal away, the day die

as your smile eclipses the light

and turns the dream into a spell.

My Accent

By Reina Gutierrez

Do you like my accent?

A foreign phonetic of one

born on the streets of Inglewood Boulevard,

the conveyance of each verse

from Mariah on the 605, TLC on the 10, and Selena on the 405,

its drawl as smooth as the waves of the Pacific.

Do you know where I come from?

Would you guess a city connected by cement freeways,

the echoes of fallen angels,

with beaches and deserts emanating light?

My barrio, one of many, gentrified, heightening despair.

You made this accent.

My tongue a personification of anguish,

millions of voices modulated since 1848,

From Old Hangtown to Downtown LA

and Zoot Suit riots to Chavez Ravine.

Do you hear the cries of my ancestors as I speak?

Their woes at my words

said in the language of their murderers and thieves blinded by manifest?

Their screams at my diction from assimilation,

Their hearts breaking

at every spoken word,

a voice with no home,

a tongue from the ghosts of conquerors.

Do you like my accent?

Untitled

By Yago Cura

At this hour from the Culver City platform

the Exposition Rider, Ex-Po, hurls east unleashed,

at an untowards velocity, catching the Morning’s pedigree.

Looking south, the crest of Monstrohill at Hahn Park: slurry

and fuzzy. You can barely make out the wide stairway, and stubble

envelopes hikers resisting the grade, getting in another aerobic morning versus challenge-landscape. You can clearly make out the lookout kiosk,

though: all sleek window-panes and sweeping panoramic views.

Then, past humpback barn canvases, sound lots and production domes

fashion wholesalers, ginormous fábricas, keg distributors, lumber bivouacs

auto body rebel bases, hydroponic universities, trucking school laboratories.

Past squat orange tire churches, mutant trees, and desolate lots

city-block long Jetro's Cash and Carry Restaurant Depot, that bazaar

of surly wholesale associates, past gangs of power lines, spray-painted fronds

and telephone switch centers, past cupcake nuclear homes painted powder

peach, and chained to palm trees with blown-back heads. Still farther,

as we come up on La Cienaga, her enormous storage citadels and overhangs—

her underpasses and over-mergings. La Cienaga, unfurls her metallic overbite,

an undertow of commerce, a tributary to dredge, while way back in the background:

file and rank Westwood apartment skyscrapers.

The sandstone Rome of U.C.L.A., cursed beyond more ridges and ranges,

and if you look through the trees you can barely make out a tiny Hollywood sign,

or at least the tract in the loam of the promontory where that idiot beacon bleeds all night.

Past the Farmdale stop, past the hail mary high school academy,

goat-knowledge homes of Dorsey High, and on to the dilapidated alleys,

peppered streets that go from industrial to residential to intimate homesteads.

Past Crenshaw, past the County Probation Depot, past neat chateaus

and former starter homes, past stark corners, West Angeles Cathedral,

its stained-glass knave, crescent auditorium, humongous semicircle self.

And now, Jefferson becomes corrugated outposts, amnesiatic, real-talk

brick stretches, hardware barracks, and roofing stores until you hit Western

and Foshay, Home of the Panthers, and mini-Craftsmen with sagging

eaves and feral clusters of lavender and bougainvillea. Then, two miles east

until Vermont, the Ex-Po creeps across the Jesse Brewer Homeless Person’s Park

and the Museum of Natural History, the City Rose Garden, and burial place

of our Challenger. And for a good ten minutes, the landscape is private terra-cotta;

the view is svelte blond women jogging towards their life coaches, and marauding brunettes from the Land that La Crosse Forgot torching honor discount cards.

But, not before the Expo Rider goes underground, and I get to photocopy my face

in the toner of a makeshift mirror that exaggerates my wrinkles, platinumizes my smile,

my wry signature, wattage of my inclination to tonic the harshnesses or debark.

And so by 23rd Street we see the St. Vincent de Paul Church, it’s shell sweating

with cerulean blue condensation, it’s baroque stucco flourishes, devilish and inflected.

Past the pea green walls of Trade Tech and its many bays and docks and referees of labor.

Past the lunch trucks with intermittent neon signs that flash tortas, tlayudas, and tacos.

Past the murals of grossly muscular Marines, world peace, and alloy kindergarteners.

And then I return to myself, a photocopy of the person I will be yesterday and the day

tomorrow, alone with my reflection in a lonely metal tube, an anti-oxidant or pathogen,

radical running late to a meeting on the loading dock for the Central Library.

Zuma Beach Nocturne

By Alixen Pham 

Everyone returns to their birthplace, pulled

by the moon’s siren call. The night is a womb,

the ocean a primal refuge. Black grass ripples

in the moaning voice of an albatross, beak

clacking against the loneliness, wings the surety

of belonging in the blindness. I shed my two legs,

undulate on my belly, perfume sand into my navel.

My flesh comes alive like lightning striking a tooth.

Here the stars remember who I am. Here my breath

is the horizon, endless like the hooves of running waves,

wind the Earth exhaling. Seagulls circle over my head,

calling my hair back to seaweed, calling me back to shell,

trusting they will carry me where I need to go, trusting

that I, too, was given the knowing of leatherback turtles.

Passover Blues

By Pam Ward

I don’t know about you

but I got runaway slave roots.

Roof jumpin’ fools

who’d rather rot

than be tied

who’d rather leap

than be horsewhipped

or forced to work free.

Who ran off, escaping

the torture & rape,

or being strung

like some clothes

on the line.

I don’t know ‘bout ya’ll

but my grandma was slick.

The original midnight creep,

she tipped off one moon.

Jumping two stories

all she took from slavery’s jaw

was a fat busted lip

and the almighty gall.

Ducking through fields.

Hiking in hills.

Living on snake juice & grime

and “Damn it, bitch

why won’t you die?”

Wandering alone

just like Moses

for 40 long nights

until she hit

California’s bent spine.

I don’t know about yours

but I have blue overseer eyes

and the bondage still taints

the hue of my skin

but I got grandma

black & rich heating

my neckbones & thighs.

It’s a renegade mix

of strychnine & street

a pan of grits flying

for men who ain’t right.

I won’t bury myself

like some of those

poor lost black souls.

I will flow, red & rich

like a good Seder wine.

Racing like the Pacific

whipping rock into slush.

Always running.

Always coming.

Each wave thunderous & free

with the strength

of a run-away slave.

Yeah

By Brian Sonia-Wallace 

I learn to sing for the Spring musical.

My parents tell me to pretend

that the 405 in our backyard

is the ocean, our home

a constant hum of freeway noises

by the auto body shops,

down the road from Tito’s Tacos

& the ice rink, now closed.

The eucalyptus sheds fragrantly

& it never gets too cold.

At night, I’d blast All American

Rejects & ride my bike

down the La Ballona creek

to where it lets out into forever.

We are from the end

of the rainbow, the 40-acre

backlot behind the magic,

a sundown town

where we painted diversity

on the walls & kept the police

on standby.

In school, they teach us two languages

& dances from across the world.

Everyone knows they are

from somewhere else. Everyone

is from here. We dance together,

sweaty teens screaming

Lil John’s verse on Yeah.

Sony gives us cameras & we

made weird art films. Write essays

about justice & promise, as adults,

we’ll do better.

So, yeah, that’s what we’re out here

trying to do.

Untitled

By Sierra Sumie

In-between Weymouth and Western, where street memories fade or they fester

you mimicked a jaded professor and decided to slip away.

Did you feel their soles lift before plummet? Instruct the angels to hold back their trumpets? To mourn your collection of puppets, who forfeited their strings.

Maybe we provoked you, motivated and poked you?

Permitting the Pacific to chip away at your pristine.

Eroded Earth by cavity rests atop unreported casualties.

You surrendered time to gravity.

New ridges form like forgotten pottery, begging to be seen.

Witnessing.

Withering.

Crumbling.

Blistering.

Bluffs.

How does one prepare a proper goodbye?

Sediment that grew tired of watching people die.

Paseo Del Mar, and its colossal reply.

A parade of discussions to try and rebuild you, silence the sink hole of generational issues.

Titled tide pools beckon a new welcome committee, hopping chain link fences to see my Sunken City.

Growing Up in Los Angeles

By Jackie Chou

The streets of Chinatown

where my family set foot

sparkles with mica

in the bright sunlight

blinding our eyes

like our immigrant dreams

There,

my mother's mouth went dry

making sales at our store

talking folks into buying

what we sold--

silk blouses

sequined dresses

hand-knit tablecloths

and whatnot

My father,

when not lifting heavy boxes

sat outside like a mascot

on a brown folding chair

a clipboard with paper on his lap

a black felt tip pen in his hand

writing stories of his hardships

Those rough hands turned me

in a father-daughter cha-cha

under the rainbow strobe light

of a ballroom dance club

in Eagle Rock

my mother by our side

urging me to dance

as the once foreign city

became our home

Oh, Hollywood

- for Quentin Tarantino

By Linda Neal

Please listen, so you'll understand why

I've seen Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood

five times. Oh Hollywood, not only the hills

and movie rites, the playbills and bright lights.

It's the boogie nights and fantasy flights, the fake

cowboy saloon, mid-century swoon over women in

white bathing suits—those long-legged beauties—

and a bronzed man-boy idol swinging from a tree.

Take me back to old movies and their stars,

scenes of mystery and longing,

that shook me out of my seat

terror and laughter at the reliable glamor,

the unreliable horror, a movie that swept across the screen

like Hollywood herself, through neon oases, dank marshes,

dry deserts where heroes and anti-heroes thrive or barely

survive. Bring on the swashbucklers and cowboys,

gun-slinging sex bombs, the forever ascendant stars.

Bring me the wretched lostness that is Hollywood

where the gold ring hangs out in the sun at the end

of Sunset, on top of Mulholland, in a footprint

at Grauman's Chinese. Oh, Hollywood, I love

the Kodachrome color and stink—Hollywood and Vine,

Musso and Frank's rumors of chili,

Liz and Burton smooching in a booth. Tracy and Hepburn,

bigger than life. Bogie and Bacall; it's all more than

a dream, because I'm Not There and neither are you.

The specifics become the image, the image becomes

Liz's lavender eyes and Marilyn's glamor-wave hair.

Hollywood, you're more than a story on a screen,

more than hot bodies making more heat. You show us

how alone we are, whether we're digging our toes

in beach sand, hiking in the Mojave or driving the ridge

of the Angeles Crest. Even if the bad guy dies

and everybody else floats away on Wings of Desire

and lands somewhere Over the Rainbow, we are alone.

redwood highway with a case of you

By Marci Vogel 

on repeat
all the way through
Blue — seasons shift
inside a palm south-

bound to a green foot
on the clutch
radio dialed to K-Earth
101 question marks

in the chords —

a small yellow bus
taxies summer-
burnished cubs up &
down carousel ranges

painted dulcimer
piano guitar — a whole
orchestra — at the height
of the ravine

the emergency door
swings open
& Laurel Canyon
sun floods

over the alarm
down the center
aisle — miles of possible
strummed on long

straps of a bag
toting every molecule
over the chasm
a small boy dangles

before an invisible
north star
slings into motion
& we pull to the soft

shoulder of the road
nestled between both sides
now & an ocean of blue —

Untitled

By Sarah Wizemann

I followed a snail

down a brambled path

of broken cartwheels

and lemon bar dreams.

I caressed the peacocks

and swayed in the peppertree breeze.

Kronos hid in the bushes.

Was it always a

h

e

r

I R

U

ca N

Or did the

p

E a

L s T

stop

in midair sometimes?

I remember them doing that.

I remember the laurels.

I remember running giddy

through cobblestone streets

in foreign lands,

white sapphires in my eyes,

buying illustrations of naughty flappers.

They packed up their crowns

packed up their girdles

packed up their lumens.

They’re high on a shelf now

somewhere behind the baby clothes

and winter coats you know you’ll never need

in California.

It doesn’t snow here,

no matter how cold it gets.

They huddle deep in the bowels

of a hard shelled suitcase,

waiting for someone

to take them down.

To come upon them

on a blue-ringed day

when the wolves are blooming

and the sunflowers are howling.

They’ll fall out of the closet

into salamander hands

and hop like mexican jumping beans

to be resuscitated.

It’ll be tiramisu.

There won’t be an amuse bouche.

Just straight to the Opera House.

No passport required.

And the winds will laugh

and the petals will freeze,

suspended in midair

like a Polaroid.

And I’ll pirouette

through the passagio

ringed with wisteria blossoms

where no one can catch me.

Magic hour won’t pass me by.

I will bathe

in its golden light

forever.

Crossing the Bridges

By Charles Jensen

–Long Beach International Gateway and Vincent Thomas Bridge


The steel elbows at the port
dangle cranes above ships
eager to unburden themselves.

From Long Beach, I drive up
the International Gateway
with its radiant cables

shining out from pylons.
The wind shreds above,
below, through. Semis shudder,

exhale exhaust as dark
tumbleweeds floating away.
Everyone speeds, brake lights

coding messages in our wake.
On Terminal Island the trucks
converge to meet their ships,

and vice versa, and goods
arrive or depart for their
immigration. Metal boxes

of many colors in stacks
of fanciful Legos, their names
foreign, or unfamiliar.

The Vincent Thomas Bridge
stretches toward San Pedro
like two green men

shaking hands across
a dinner table. My tires
buzz across the grates

as if to warn: driver,
do not wander off.
Here at the world’s edge

such fears are just.
The ocean bleeds
as far as the eye

will see. We,
who live here, find
ourselves always

on the edge,
whether we
admit it

or not.

Ashes

By Tish Eastman

the hills of Glendale are burning,

orange wings flare against twilight

she drives past the security gate

for the last time

with the first time

still shining golden in memory

as a triumph over enduring timidity

in having dared a dream of such splendor

while still a Tinkerbell-sprinkled girl

She is met at the door by her ex-assistant

her ex-colleague and the security guard

who once waved her in to work with a smile

all of whom are there

to watch carefully

to assure that no magic is stolen

as she boxes her possessions, plants,

personal paperwork, tabletop fountain

and everything else they agree is hers

Maybe someone should have warned her

to fly low but not so low as to fail

to fly high but not so high as to be marked

instead they coddled

her fledgling efforts

promoted her, painted the target of envy

as she exceeded all expectations

but she could not resist the chance

to test wings long clipped by circumstance

she pauses to hold the black origami crane

once folded in ignorance of ill-omen

takes down her small print of an apprentice

in sorcerer’s hat

trusting his brooms to follow

she leaves behind images of far kingdoms

lagoons, carousels, volcanoes, and ships

hanging in memoriam to unfinished fantasy

as she flips off her light out of habit

Santa Ana winds blow sparks in plumes

ashes to ashes and pixie dust

three silhouettes wave farewell

seeing only feathers

stuck in tar

but she remembers her ecstasy of flight

as she drives into outcast night

while the hills of Glendale flicker

in her rear view mirror

BREAKFAST ALONE

By Michelle Andrea Bracken

I had breakfast at Puerto Nuevo

this morning in the front patio, alone

except for the rumbles and purrs of La Brea

as it pushed its way along

The soft breath of Inglewood’s cool morning air

rustling my hair and caressing my face,

slightly tinged by the rush hour exhaust

as it quickened the pace

And the young man, walking his big dog down the street

When he stopped to give a command, the dog sat

and waited for his treat

And the young waitress asking, "More coffee, Mama?"

The last sweet sips waiting for me

The morning passing with these small dramas

I politely shook my head no, this will be enough

And the shade on the pavement crawling

slowly back into itself as the sun climbed into the sky

I finished my Greek omelet and my cafe de la olla

And said how blessed am I.

After Joni Mitchell's "California"

By Lois P. Jones

California, California the forest where my heart
grew high in the crown of a Big Sur redwood.
Heartwood of greens and blues and the bark shiny

with beetles and bag-a-day blues. Land where I sold
pretzels on Venice Beach and the muscled boys flexed
their danger in the sun. I saw a man cut the rope

from the neck of a seal before he ran
to the waves. I saw a rope hang a dream on the edge
of a drug – medication they call it, addiction to the pain

free life. I saw hope tumble down the edge of a Hollywood
billboard. Oh California you are not free but you do take me
as I am, you take the lovers jacked up on screen.
Take the wild orange poppies into your fisted hills –

the land of the long draught and the pouring rains.
Your heart burns the back of my South Pasadena hut
and tremors its desiccated ground. Succulents hold

in their saliva, cactus never wander in their spiked
stilettos. Oh, you, California, I secretly love your long-
necked cliffs. The tongue of your dusty scarved paths.

Let me breathe your vineyards deep into my lungs.
I’m strung out on your cloudless skies. I might leave
you for another lover, but I’ll always come home

to the land where everyone is strange and a stranger
as homeless shelter on the benches of your shores
while mansions teeter on the muck of Malibu.

Oh you, California. You’re a hooker for attention. It’s time
to place you in detention. You need an intervention
of reality but I am free, free and you do do take me as I am.

Movie Studio at Dusk

By Lynn Bronstein

At five, it’s time
For the day people to go home.
Office workers
Who never see a key light,
Haul their lunch leftover
Paper bags
As they hurry to garages.
Most cannot leave fast enough.
Engines hum. Executive cars
Roll confidently through the main gate.
Trucks and charter buses
Make their way slowly
Between the sound stages,
Careful not to run over
The lines of tourists
Led by pages moving toward
This night’s sitcom filming.
Down Main Street they can see
The neon lights going on,
At an old honky-tonk set from The Twilight Zone.
Cameras are not allowed.
All the visitors must set their memory
Machines on alert,
As they pass some tired
Departing working stiffs who say:
“Let’s wave to everyone
Who’s not a VIP.”
The pink streaked sky
Slowly fades to a deeper blue
And goes out
By itself.

Switching Course

By Amy Elisabeth Davis 

i. ponds and forests

Before it became home to groomed 

tracts and sprinkler systems,

Los Angeles sat in scrubby desert. 

Before the desert, 

lush green covered its ground

and addressed the sky, waving 

from the limbs of trees. 

That was when the LA basin 

      still held tight the rain 

that touched its surface

          along with drops 

                that met the bordering mountains. Wet 

flowed over and into 

the earth. It hid 

underground, 

            filled ponds 

            and marshes, wove 

                                  a watery network calling 

on tulle to grow thick. It fed forests. 

ii. 1815, 1825

When a great storm softened ground,

           trees tumbled 

                 into the churning river,

Where a canyon 

turned narrow, trunks wedged

       between 

       its walls

          and shut 

              the route the water took

downstream to the basin and beyond. 

The lake that pooled behind the seal of trees

              lodged there until a new deluge sent 

                        torrents pushing through 

the tangled roots and branches, freeing

                                                               the trunks, letting 

                                                                                             loose the water 

no longer held behind the woody wall of limbs. 

As the suddenly violent river  

left its westward path, 

           it etched a new track,

           found ocean farther south,

                                           farther east. 

It quit the lowlands it had nurtured, 

     abandoned the ponds, 

           deserted the sycamores, the willows, the pines.

                                    .

The runoff from the upper watershed, 

            the hills where rain came more often, 

headed straight for the sea,

The green of the basin 

     lived as best it could 

                on sometimes-floods.

iii. concrete

The city’s river 

and its tributaries 

do not flow freely,

they cannot create

pathways. They do not cross 

muddy flatlands  

          or dig canyons 

through sand and stone. 

The Army Corps

channelized them, 

        lined the riverbanks

        forced

        water 

        to run 

        tight, 

        narrow—

a way

to stop those rare but massive

            soakings

The last grasses

died of thirst.

            Desert spread.

In the city, 

        colors are plotted. But for every

                   acre of peony

                       and green, three

are impervious–

streets, sidewalks, and shingles 

block water 

from soaking 

into ground. 

            Rain spills down driveways, 

            through roadways,

            into storm drains that carry it

                                     past the shore. Winter 

cloudbursts sweep 

            leaked transmission fluid,

            cast-off shoes, and blown-off 

            baseball caps            

to the sea. Forced 

to swallow water the city needs 

           (but poisons), 

                   the Pacific cannot digest              

the filth we feed it.