Shadows advance at the edge of L.A., eucalyptuses peeling
  like Band-Aids in the smog.

You read Suzuki, Baudelaire, & M. L. Rosenthal in a library carrell
    the color of butterscotch.

The more you read, the less bad you feel; this solution will last
    your whole life. . . .

Lopsided smoke rings from a hitchhiker’s mouth, Joni Mitchell
    on the turntable, Yusef Lateef.

Friend with pink eyebrows reading, friend in a pinafore singing.

Your hair is a yard long. Blue work shirt. Ripped jeans.

A poet visits in a cloak & writes “Open Field” on the board.

Star ribbons loop across the sun. Incense & suffering, beauty
    of suffering. The Saturday boy issues fierce remarks,
    you are both in love with Keats dying.

The war the war. The marches
    change nothing. You lie

on a mattress with others, springs poking through.
Some are gay but don’t say.

Large amounts of pot. Marlboros crushed into linoleum.

One candle is lit with another, moths are invited in. This year

a case of Coors, next year “A Case of You.” Mourning
for America won’t end.

Now the past flies by like an owl with a vole in its beak,

    fire takes the hills where fire took your heart & desire
    stunned you.

This is drawn from “Still House in the Desert.”