errol miller
California Dreaming
In the final act
taciturn
other rustic brothers choose
to die in exile, we
are talking about snakeskin prices
little bentwood pieces of the puzzle
with sketches of the 50's, you take
your best girl from the Beat Generation
and go to a multi-cultured party
the evening bell rings, the midnight bell
and dawn's crazy aftertone:
give us more wine, give us precious bread
let us travel by air and sea and rail
let us tramp overland to hear
native tongues across the continent
the voice of resistance is real, of course
lighting cigarettes, we are all condemned men
pushing bloody entrails to El Dorado
life is so much bigger there
beyond oceans of blue loneliness
to a swaggering sailor-town of solace
poetry from Paradise oozes from fresh wounds
illegal fruit simmers peachlike
in the bosoms of dogsummer maidens
someone attempts to fashion words of hope
there is no need to reassemble
the fragments of loss, alive again
in the nightmare drawings of a New Age
where penmanship i-- not important
and the slow women from New York City
are meager company
in a fast foreign field
on the Grand Strand of literature.
