“And Alderaan’s not far away, it’s Californication”
—The Red Hot Chili Peppers“We must be absolutely modern”
—Rimbaud***
ONETo those who grew up Post Modern
if not entirely absurd
To those who found God
in a desert, wave, or quarter pipeTo the Tiki dreams of Polynesian Demons
fixed within a Sunset Blvd bar
To the rocket-adorned roofs of Googie diners
Timeless in the California nightTo those who believe
in the act of believing
To the modern pilgrims
Settling the suburban wildsWhere the freeways run like rivers
Deeper than the Mississippi
And the Summer stretches outward
into Winter, Fall, and SpringTo all of you—the actual and living inhabitants
of the California Myth
(the seductive, sickly, tanned cousin
of Apple Pie American Dream)
I write for all of you—all of us—
We are all, somehow, both real and unreal, living and abstract, here in this land;
we are the sinew, bone, and muscle of all of America’s dreaming.***
TWOBlazing cities of sprawl and concrete
banish the vast wilderness with vastness greater still
Cities materialize within a moment—an instant—
as if time and space were merely questions of will…From Hollywood to Silicone Valley
an Empire Intangible—of dreams
conquered raw soil as sure as imagination
with ones and zeroes and silver screens…And also, the dimming echo of a forgotten empire:
the holy Spanish Missions—beatific—
God’s own anchors on the edge of the continent
the final posts of civilization against the throbbing Pacific…***
THREEAmerica built this place
as a desert Fort Knox for her dreams,
we were all of us tasked to build
stories of her past and of her future…But while the cargo ships, plump from ports in Asia,
slump into the ports at San Pedro and Long Beach;While the fresh young faces, streaming deep from mid-America
flood Los Angeles like a human tide of beauty;While the other fresh young faces, running deep from South America
ford North on the back of their own American Dream…and while the night swelters on a Summer’s evening,
in a dusk-lit Mission, America is here—now, and California.***
FOURSan Francisco
Los Angeles
San DiegoThese are, after all, the names of saints and angels
(See! Even the names are unreal!)
Every city is a spoken prayer…San Francisco—the humming walls and the blood on the pillow and Ginsberg trying to suck off kid from Idaho…
Los Angeles—Hollywood and Malibu and Inglewood and Compton merely miles apart…
San Diego—the tip of America itself, and the sharp point of its navy…I see these things and ask myself, “isn’t this obvious? doesn’t everyone know?
am I just too naive for having even been surprised?”
Dec
31