the riverbed is cool the cranes have a yellowish belly but are beautiful nevertheless there are bleached soda cans but the logos hang strong against the California sun i sit by the reeds and watch the Chinese couple dig in the mud for long lost jewels they explain the husband is originally from Kansas she says i watch on until pitch black leathery little birds with mean diamond tinged eyes and beaks yellow like egg yolks begin to crowd around catching tadpoles one stands on a mossy Takis bag on the trail bicycles travel north to south and vice versa i only see helmets from my shivering reeds somewhere by the train yard an old trash truck backfires and the mean little black birds lift up into the sky like a flamenco dancer’s skirt my eyes pause at the rim of Dodger stadium and out of nowhere my mind drags me to the summers eating sticky juicy watermelon slices with my sister as the grown ups drank howled and listened to the game on an old radio from their army days and now i wonder if they died knowing that some day i would be leisurely sitting by these LA River reeds sipping fancy tea watching treasure hunters and fancy bicycle helmets wiz by and are the yellowing cranes the souls of our lost boys from the Hanoi Hilton
Chavez Ravine
where crows go to bury their dead
a tight jawed loon that’s what i’ll be
silently i will slink
behind the dying ugly trees
they die like a Shakespearean villain
across from the dirty river
their dusty peeling trunks
looking like they wear shoes
but its only beige mushroom caps
growing from an addict’s turd
ant trail metropolis up and down
the droopy branches bound by old cassette tape ribbon
the sugar burdens on their little thorax
weighing just as much
as the burdens on my curved shoulders
obscure illusions and esoteric lies
the native boulders akin to WCF’s face
emblazoned with red stripes and nonsense
the names of petty thief street artists
stretching down from the lived in hill
where crows go to bury their dead
dime sized nettles in my unkempt hair
will tangle with the strands in silence
and with a little time
the thorns of broken thoughts ruptured memories
will burrow even deeper
like wet mud i step into it
but quiet i will be
be silent the people have spoke
a stone chorus in space
i hear them on cold nights
they are getting colder by the way
i’ll glance beyond the conniving lights
alone out of the way and in silence
thee battle for Los Angeles


meals on wheels at the Savoy
my head is empty at 3.27 a.m.
it is damp with the night’s debauchery
plopping at the top of the bridge
are the noisy little birds
no one can hear
pall bearers to the dead mosquitoes
left there by circumstance
morsels for the hungry
cleaners of the earth
i think of such things
while the world keeps turning
and my sleep leaves
it won’t return
i turn and stare at drying
turnips on my table