It was this way:

a cluster of us, waiting
for a signal to change,
the brown-skinned man next to me
proclaiming Prada on a t-shirt, his green cap
says why not? my shoulders bare to the heat
but for aqua straps then a writhing thing turned up
by so many sharp shovels of hard digging
pushes her way into us.

It was this way:
the effort of arms cranking wheels
depletes the reserves she's gathered to get here,
head lolls, matted hair resting on a navy blouse
with yellow flowers hanging open
limp empty breasts cracked nipples
laying on her distended belly like animals,
bare filthy feet, bruised and bloody toes
unbearably delicate poking out below
two calves contained in blackened casts,
skin patterned with a constellation
of blue-edged sores, purple broken flesh
too much of it for any explanation,
spills over the plaster, over
the sides of the battered chair dragging
a pink skirt painted with brown shit
in the remaining spokes of one wheel,
her eyes closed, through white cracked lips she says
sounds that don't come
from human mouths, is missing the second finger
on her right hand, is wearing one silver dangling earring,
has a newspaper, and a bible on her lap,
flies ring a buzzing halo around her head.
It was this way.

She is our raw wound, oozing
every terrible thing we've thought
or said or done, or haven't,
our every private shame dissected, laid out
naked on the slab of our legion of failures,
gaping pit from which we are unable to climb out,
terrified to step into.
She is how we try and drain the sea
with a straw.
And we look away while we watch
for the white light hand raised, like a benediction
we don't deserve and it comes and we take it, we
cross the street, no backward glance,
the white hand guiding us, safe.


It was this way.

We have forgotten what she looks like already.

david michael

Sitting with a friend inside Banquette Cafe on Main, we looked up and David Michael was sitting on the other side of the window, smoking Marlboro Reds, every now and then pushing his glasses up, taking sips of iced coffee from a thick bistro glass, looking for all the world like some kind of advertisement for every romantic image you secretly harbor of intense writers scribbling and starving artists sketching at sidewalk cafes. It could have been Paris.

As it turns out, we weren't far off with the starving artist thing. He was homeless, depending upon the empty couches of kind friends most days, trying to stay in design school and the big plaid bag on his table's other seat was full of most everything he'd decided to carry with him. He was drawing intricate and graceful patterns on the pages of his sketchbook that he hoped ultimately would be designs for fabric.

When we interrupted him to ask what he was doing and explain how very romantically he'd struck us--with his drawing and cigarettes and Woody Allen sort of sexiness, if Woody Allen wore Levis and white t-shirts-- he was startled but charming and bemusedly consented to a photo. As we ate lunch, it became evident that the waitress had quite a crush on him, considered him one of her regulars, and his iced coffee never reached the glass-half-empty spot.

We wanted to buy him lunch. Offer a couch. Invite him to dinner. Put our fervent wish that we'd someday wear a patterned silk dress that burst with the bright essence of his creative drive into his duffel bag, to carry against those days when it seems one is too old, too poor, too damned tired to keep struggling, to keep dreaming it will all one day come together the way we imagine.

We settled for slipping a twenty to the waitress for the next time he came in, sure that she'd look out for him. I walked by Banquette for weeks to give him a copy of his picture, but I never saw him again.

stella

This post is a poem written by anja leigh, l.a. poet. photo credit goes to her too. stella dottir is a designer of luxe and luscious clothing, who inspires poetry! her shop is @ 430 south main, click on her name to visit her website...but give yourself a treat and visit her (and brandr!) in person.


stella

she adorns main street
festooned in black lace
hair plaited and piled
yellow, purple, fuchsia
ribbons entwined

brandr is her bengal companion, posing atop the treadle sewing machine, swaggering to the cerise couch to survey his everywhere. he does not pause.

stella is chiffon
satin, taffeta, organza
cashmere, bouclé, gossamer
bohemian elegance
daughter of Iceland
via hurricane Katrina
but not adrift

brandr stretches, yawns, struts to the damask chair, his sole purpose to capture attention. he allows caresses and demands praises, as his due.

they are royal
are the fabric of fantasy
are homespun finery
exotic companions –
they will be eminent
probably

doc

doc is a regular one-stop-shop of a guy. does a little sleight of hand magic...card tricks and things. and there's hardly an axe (instrument) he can't blow...has some balloon lungs, he does, and he's played with a lot of hep cats in his day...still does when he gets a chance. says downtown used to be where it was happening real live. but doc isn't only a magic music man...he's a scholar, a student of life, you might say. says he's written books about mathematics, physics, history, and psychology--and he might write another yet if he takes a notion. never knows what'll capture his interest next. he's known some damn fine women too...never could hold onto one though, gets itchy. and then too, most women don't understand that a man's got to do what a man's got to do. but they were damn fine, all the same. doc likes the library...it's peaceful. if you're looking for a real gone daddy-o to do some magic for you, you might find him there--and you can't go wrong with doc--he's 18 karat.

"...a ringside seat" or-- why i'm writing this stuff

carey mc williams is one of the finest writers of non-fiction on california. he was a progressive intellectual, committed to racial & ethnic equality, healthy politics, and the advancement and protection of civil liberties. he was the editor of the nation for 20 years, and has an astonishing body of work to his credit.

but though i am a southern california native, i didn't know any of this when i began exploring my downtown la neighborhood, and came across these words carved into a long, low curving wall at pershing square:

" My feeling about this weirdly inflated village in which I had come to make my home (haunted by memories of a boyhood spent in the beautiful mountain parks, the timberline country, of northwestern Colorado), suddenly changed after I had lived in Los Angeles for seven long years of exile. I have never been able to discover any apparent reason for this swift and startling conversion, but I do associate it with a particular occasion. I had spent an extremely active evening in Hollywood and had been deposited toward morning, by some kind soul, in a room at the Biltmore Hotel. Emerging the next day from the hotel into the painfully bright sunlight, I started the rocky pilgrimage through Pershing Square to my office in a state of miserable decrepitude. In front of the hotel newsboys were shouting the headlines of the hour: an awful trunk-murder had just been commited; Aimee Semple McPherson had once again stood the town on its ear by some spectacular caper; a University of Southern California football star had been caught robbing a bank; a love-mart had been discovered in the Los Feliz Hills; a motion-picture producer had just wired the Egyptian government a fancy offer for permission to illuminate the pyramids to advertise a forthcoming production; and, in the intervals between these revelations, there was news about another prophet, fresh from the desert, who had predicted the doom of the city, a prediction for which I was morbidly grateful. In the center of the park, a little self-conscious of my evening clothes, I stopped to watch a typical Pershing Square divertissement: an aged and frowsy blonde, skirts held high above her knees, cheered by a crowd of grimacing and leering old goats, was singing a gospel hymn as she danced gaily around the fountain. Then it suddently occured to me that, in all the world, there neither was nor would ever be another place like this City of the Angels. Here the American people were erupting, like lava from a volcano; here, indeed, was the place for me - a ringside seat at the circus."

if it hadn't mentioned Aimee Semple McPherson's name, had instead, say, britney spears', or paris hilton's names been carved into the stone, it would have still seemed new. it was as fresh when i first saw it as it had been in 1946. i doubt that anyone will ever say it better, and i know that no one will more perfectly describe why i too, am in love with this city of angels.

as i explore this "weirdly inflated village" of mine, it seems i can't walk a step without stories finding me...a veritable big top complete with tightrope walkers and giants, tattooed ladies and clowns and snake charmers. i decided to share some of those stories.