Suffer For Art

Bluff Road Eulogy 

Summers bound by the chain linked slopes down
to the Rio Hondo canal 
Climb into the back seat for a drive 
Hot and drowsing witness to sights to never unsee
Vons lodge-pole sentry
Van de Kamps Dutch Bakery windmill
Uniroyal Tire bas-relief visage, viziers of winged-human-lions
Northern Europe and Assyria have been colonized 
MONTEBELLO ROTARIANS WELCOMES YOU

Door protector, dish weaponized
Bob’s Big Boy bodily unnerves you 
Here is the big man, our leader, respect his appetite! 
Take notes on these paper doilies (under the coffee cups)
Mid-century, mid-sentence, incomplete 
Eat out more often
OVER A MILLION SERVED

Later you are in the way under foot 
You youngsters are so needy; be inventive! 
Peer at spheres and atmospheric colors in polymer
make pretend that for a whole nation
nothing would be unreachable
Dream of outer space and inner meanings suspended
in glitter and tumbling boomerangs 
inside the kitchen’s Formica counter
SKYLARK

Run around the tree, child and you’ll turn to butter
Oh —but that wild tiger is mad chasing its crazed tail 
desperately clawing crying 
Zoos recreate Nature  
Wildness you can get with a Membership Key 
PUT A TIGER IN YOUR TANK

Another chlorine cleared day is ending 
Hot ancient asphalt is relaxing
tar pits pulling small fresh birds down to still-life 
Like bees dead-float in a backyard suspension
of fresh chemicals 
Living tableau, pass out over pooled edges
do not be frightened of the flash the Polaroid is a marvel
look how burned you are in a square of unfixed light
SAY CHEESE

The aquifer sound is muffled; canned and uncanny 
Artesian rivers below subsonic, tectonic, deep below
Train yards build the Empire at night 
all surface all Valley, above the Hills, ignoring the Desert
MOONSHOT

Take the family to the Mall, parking is convenient.

(Summer, 2021)