We got out of the ****** motel early,
while we still could,
before the rental car got stolen
or our room underwent dynamic drive-by refurbishment.
There was supposed to be a
complimentary continental breakfast,
but the coffee machine was broken
and someone had already swiped all the donuts.

My only frame of reference for Inglewood was that it was Sam Jackson's character's home turf in 'Pulp Fiction',
leading me to suspect it
probably wasn't a nice area,
although the fat ****** smoking outside
when we'd checked in at 2am
had seemed very friendly.

You were right about LA, about
how there must be a sun, but you can't
really see it, you just
sort of assume it's up there somewhere
behind the fog huffing in off the Pacific
and the toxic breath rising from the
city's gridlocked mouth.

We made for Venice Beach, because you
don't fly all that way and then not go,
us figuring ourselves early enough
in the grey, jet-lagged damp, to
avoid the junkies, the winos and the crazies,
the symptoms of America driving itself mad with
unrealistic dreams.
But they were already there, muttering and
shivering on sand and cement, some
under rags or cardboard,
just waking up in
spite of themselves.

A woman with the hungriest face I ever saw
threw a cigarette lighter at me, then yelled,
shaking in her filthy clothes, that she wasn't giving it to me, *****, FYI,
FBI, CIA, JFK... then
started screaming about Kennedy and all those lying ***** up on the hill.

The ocean ******* away at the land behind us, like it was
whetting its appetite for the day when San Andreas splinters, and the waves finally get to
devour
California.

The hungry-faced woman was still shouting when
we walked away, through the graffiti and
gangs of *******-huge, hulking seagulls.
If I'd stopped and tried to talk to her, if I'd
gotten anywhere close enough, I was
afraid she'd tear a bite out of my face,
and I didn't know what shots I'd need if that happened, and we didn't have medical.
Which was a shame,
because I'd have liked to hear
what she had to say about Kennedy.

We walked to where you'd street-parked
the car which
still hadn't been stolen.
On the way, some guy, a stranger
coming the other way, called you
'Football Dude' and asked you
to catch his neighbour if she
jumped off her balcony, but
I think he was joking.

Oh, and the car was yellow.

It was after we passed Moby’s Dock
that Ebony met her first thresher shark

He was five feet long or so
two feet shark, three feet tail,
and had just been pulled from the surf
to be proudly displayed
by the fisherman who had caught him

Ebony stood transfixed
her every muscle poised
her feathered tail twitched
as she leaned closer to inspect
and then recoiled from this cold-blooded beauty
still dressed in fleetingly iridescent
blues and greens and purples -

As the sun’s fading beams highlighted
the magnificence of this dying shark
I mourned his loss that night.

The noise and tourists
in the Pier’s arcades and bumper cars
did not detract from the peacefulness
of the Pacific in her chaos
for this was August
and they would soon go home

I watched a distant storm at sea
flashing fire against the deepening twilight
I stood, and Ebony,
gazing at the flashes of lightning

My hand felt her softness and warmth
as I stroked the waves of her black fur
relishing the cool wind on my face
listening to the rigging
of the boats resting at anchor off the Pier

Thinking about thresher sharks
Willing them away
from this place with its fishermen
and cold, baited hooks

Cori MacNaughton
13 Sept 2000

In the secret alley of Culver City, i saw a painting of my Mexican American culture being celebrated.
The lights in the secret city sparkled like champagne bubbles.
Flowing with the city's energy our legs carried us around "No Trespassers Allowed" private properties.
I imagined a life were we could walk the streets and not feel paranoid by each car that passed.
The ideal fast food American City where there's bars and restaurants on every corner.
The alley took me into hyperreality, for what is real for me might be false for others and vice versa.

What are we as human beings.
To continue this charade.
Feelings don’t reflect emotion.
A constant broken reproduction.
Something alien.
Stuffing toilet paper in our ears to avoid the sound.

Like a radio wave you reach me.
Through brick walls and curtain calls.
Never believing our names weren’t meant to be blazon in neon.

Your voice echoes through canyons.
Street lights and passersbys.
From dandelion pistols.
From candy cane hair.
I found you like a fossil.
Buried deep in my past.
Gasping for air.
Breathing resentment.

“I think you should go.”

“I think you should stay.”

Forever.

Mamacita hold me dearly under folds
of black hair where light can't shine I
feel the warmest with my nose
pulling deep breaths of floral shampoos

and hot mesoamerican corn tortilla
from the oven with pepper carnitas drifting
through cracks under locked bedroom
doorhandles, in the bed and under

an azetec starred quilt duvet between sunshine
brown arms with tiny black feminine hairs,
I think about dinnertime at seven
with my warm Mamacita and her cousins
and of all the caring people
L.A shared with me.

Fast.
Matter-less.

Moving through the city like photons.

She's never there like the stars...
muted gracelessly by carcinogenic light pollution.

Dark.
Empty.

Like a landfill where every day it's sunny.

Of course Michael
Brown
But we livin' a post racial society

remember,
love vanquishes all attackers
even when the guy next to you smells
like sour milk
and rancid pinto beans from 1989