see post from Friday

I forgot the most obvious one:

California is a facebook status update and so am I

Duh.

this is a poem

isn’t it grand

shouts into the canyon refuse return flights rimside,
batter off walls at the bottom, await a transformation
into a top-heavy metaphor for spiritual barrenness,
a change that never arrives, of course, so against its will
it remains unfull, the air within vibrato with a measured
lack of movement, not unlike an empty concert hall
that never really empties: curtains, stage, seats & cellos
left unstrung yet humming with potential symphonies
one frequency beyond the ears — this hard desert labors
to birth new prophets, Abrahamic cowboys on the trail
west, who cart stone luggage along the river, board long
canoes and point them at the gulf, not knowing the flow
no longer goes there, that their message will never reach
the coast, that only a trickle down a ditch gives evidence
a god once cut this whole in earth before it was a grave.

A poem in search of a title. For extra points, guess what it's about.

on the trail of the sun, the border
in Sonora Desert disappears, an empty intersection
late at night where traffic lights flash

red& green at once, a signal meaning
yellow, which itself is understood to say
some word with meaning everywhere

but here, the morning bears a tinseled cactus
Christmas gift of freedom -- Freedom, Arizona,
floats upon the dead sea, paling dawn

mirage, night’s last star of wonder-
ing what dreams may come upon a midnight
clear of roadblocks to magnetic north,

a quick trip over sagebrush hills into haze
where oases bend the cacti into palms:
broadleaf trees the size of hands, a paradise

so close it feels like dirt – or sand
that tries to pass as water in this garden,
flowing down the throat to choke us

Pick a title. Please.

California Dreamin’, or, The Dream of Arrival, or, Something like Life

as tough as it is to recall the details of events
ten, fifteen years later, there is burned into me
the image of your eyes beneath fast-moving lights,
on Broadway perhaps, when my fingers tingled
when I touched them to yours and felt New York
at last – or was this just in a movie starring you
know who, whatshisname, from that television show
when we were kids? meaning the idea of being
here stays one step removed from things in front of us,
cloaked in the mystery of itself like dead skin
yet unshed, this whole state camouflaged by a dream
of its own creation, self-creation, saying we are
more than what or where we have been, or can be
more, once we have obtained the necessary degrees,
personal experiences or at the very least a profile
on Sunday in the New York Times, as only this seems
sufficient to the day’s demands, might actualize,
self-actualize us in the public consciousness,
bestow a dignity or better posture others will see
fit to admire and discuss when we’re not around,
at the same time we walk down an aisle or street
to a soundtrack composed of crazy applause. but

nothing hollow about this certainty: upon arrival
further exhaustion remains, not a moment to waste
in the sun along our parade route – though gilded
trees along the way will be showered by jubilant
champagne teardrops, ahead a prize awaits us,
something real that would allow us, finally,
with all the humility we have saved for such a day,
to disavow our previous deeds, laurels we’ve earned
but wore lightly, put down with a graciousness
of even higher order, while everything, even our words,
fragile as the newsprint they love, burn quickly
in memory, the evidence of our triumph destroyed
by the arrival of what we wanted all along (it wasn’t
fame?) and the beginning of everything else to come.

this might be a bad title

somewhere over the rainbow

myth rolls up the California coast, a cold front
fogs the tinderbox hills around the city,
freezes their dreams into nightmares of lightning
& fires – whose smoke, seen from afar, appears
golden, a special effect projected off mirrors
east of the valley, still showing the way west
where it leads to what was believed to be the sun
when the state remained the only daytime star:

a destination etched on fences in Texas, final
highway exit sign embossed in gold, a secret
unmarked milepost west of San Francisco,
a floating stage made just for us to play ourselves,
a point beyond now, in the glow of a spotlight
sunset, an overripe orange under grey
inflated clouds the color of war – the weather
turns suddenly worse, beacons recede into dark,

capsize the dream beneath cumulonimbus
that wave like a flag over ocean, an ultimate
sign from the site of the wreck, where armies
of poets reassemble, sunk to the sea bottom,
breathing through each others’ mouths bubbles
filled to bursting with words of assent, a violent
yes to becoming more than strangers here,
washed up on shore, each in our own California.

I live here

California is a limp dick john on Hollywood Boulevard
California is the Central Valley high on pesticides & meth
California is Big Sur overrun by tourists jerking off their RVs in the sunset
California is Los Angeles
California is San Francisco
California is Las Vegas
California is a schizophrenic waving an assault rifle in a bank just wanting a friend
California is tomorrow
California is nostalgic for a past that never existed
California is money, baby, money
California is a furious Titan throwing lightning bolts in summertime
California is Walt Disney’s bad acid trip
California is thinking its butt is too big but will shake it anyway
California is trying to get water from a stone to grow artichokes in Death Valley
California is one exit too far down the highway
California is desperate to be liked
California is your favorite isn’t it?
California is the gardens of Babylon and the desert that’s left
California is a wife-beater and a strung-out junkie who likes teddy bears
California is gansta raps of children’s day care
California is the religion of smokestacks and gold-plated condoms
California is the curve of the earth on the horizon turning into the future
California is anorexic & angry about sunshine
California is too fat for its own good – would you like fries with that?
California is money in the bank for Central American dictators
California is the Tower of Babel in negotiations with itself
California is what?
California is Brad Pitt on billboards smiling into our vacant subconscious
California is psychotically possessed by long dead conquistadors
California is the communist dream of certain Berkeley intellectuals
California is choking on the nocturnal emissions from its own erect tailpipe
California is hills not so much like white elephants but more like dirty ones in back alleys
California is shaved head no teeth angel dust glory hole soaring
California is dead wildflowers that stink like skunks
California is a prophecy starring Christopher Walken
California is unprotected sex with strangers you just met at the Chinatown library
California is marriage for a green card but not for homosexuals
California is a pre-nup and a quickie divorce from Donald Trump
California is the undefended fortress of dreams in the eyes of Canadians, eh?
California is not what it used to be
California is only what it always was
California is maybe a little narcissistic but, c’mon, isn’t that awesome!
California is a pre-nup and a quickie divorce from Donald Trump again
California is my latest screenplay, will you read it?
California is
California is whatever you say it is
California is faulty
California is boldfaced words on a hillside and trees made of broccoli
California is the Statue of Liberty covered in sunscreen
California is doomed
California is the color of God at the end of time
California is real as it gets but how real is that
California is where America reaches the border of heaven and folds into sky
California is the golden state in flames