I am California Born and raised
The 70s Great music love and peace craze
I grew up in southern Cali (Califoria)
In the San Fernando Valley

( I’m totally a Valley girl Fur Sure)
Kids Talking in jargon, there’s no cure
People really used terms like the movie
“Clueless” where everything was groovy
Totally awesome, Rad, tubular and cool
Low riders surfers, GDI groups in school

We moved to the country Tarzana
Singing John Denver oh, Susanna
200 chickens; dog, horse older than sin
One breath from the glue factory Old Fin

Neighbors had Santa Anita quarter horse
A wonderful life until the divorce
As we grew, we went our separate way
The same kids K-12 still chat today

School reunion, now Facebook friends
See how we turned out made amends
Through the years, laughter, and tears
California  destroyed, our worst fears

LA is not the same place that used to be
It looks like a bush and they call it a tree
A mass exodus move fast travel far
Leaving in groves by plane, train, and car

Homeless tent city people in the park
Dangerous to move around after dark
Protesters intent to destroy every college
Institutions that stand for knowledge

People learned stay away from the city
San Francisco has a P and **** Map pity
Tourism is a thing of the past
California beauty sadly did not last

I’m the last hold out my friends are gone.
The Roxy, Rainbow Club Rock Music songs
Memorabilia is all that remains the same
So much history now sadness, I refrain

Snow ski and swim the ocean the same day
Vacations, camp all the lakes,places we play
Home uninsurable non-renewable wildfire
I used to believe it’s here I would retire

Earthquakes. I never paid them any mind.
A little shaking from time to time
(Accept 1994, Northridge  6.7, mg 4:31 AM)
Then good still outweighed the bad
The destruction of California makes me sad

An illegal chants  burn Cali to the ground
An accident she set herself on fire found
Set 6 fires arrested released set 5 more
Kamala Bail fund fire girl gone explore

Shasta Lake, houseboat Open space goal
3 days on the lake and not seeing a soul
Shasta Caverns, Yellowstone mountains
Mount Shasta, pure snow water, fountain
  
People took pride, no littering, they care
Now trash sprawled over everywhere
California Poppy the yellow state flower
Remembering , Cali in her golden hour

Praying again today.
These are the long days,
The ones spent in the quiet pain of waiting,
Of thinking through the things we’ve said,
The things we need still to say.

(inspired by ‘Dusty Rose Dreaming’ by vb)

We’re powdered city girls heading into a club,
bright orchids entering the hothouse,
spreading fun with noblesse oblige,
qua somethings suited for silver screens.

Our attention’s as uncertain as the stock market.

Experts at mixing trickery and disguise,
we’re but vague summations of nature,
as we sparkling preen, like excited atoms.

Rouged and kohled to unnatural colors,
dressed in silk-whispers to tease and entice,
in neon-light, broken by par-cans, scanners
and champagne flutes, we’re superhero-like
immune to societal judgment and aghast rebuke.

In our few, fleeting nights of youth
let our voices chorus in laughter.
What’s it to you? Tell the truth.
.
.
Songs for this piece:
Baby You’re a Superstar by NuDisco
Love Land by the Blenders
Nostalgie Du Voyage by Nightflight

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   The Pulitzer People Did Not Telephone Today

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 25

The Pulitzer people did not telephone today
Nor did the Library of Congress or the folks at Nobel
I could paper a room with rejection slips
Except that rejections are electronic now

I have no honorary doctorate
Universities do not ask me to speak
Publishers knock at other scribblers’ doors
And my poor verses share leaves with Orlando’s

Which is not as I like it –
                    but there is you
And it is in you that true honors accrue

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              If I am Blind, Take me to the Library

If I am blind, take me to the library
I will be comforted by the presence of books
And of those adventurous souls who read
They will tell me their lives, and read to me

If I am blind in some other way, take me to that library
I will perhaps be healed by someone wiser than I
(Most people are)
Someone who will listen to the ticking of my soul
And recommend an elixer of ancient magic

Maybe I’m blind - and sometimes I suspect I am
But you see the wonder in everything

70 A.D.

History comes back to bite us
As we learn of the temple and Titus.
When it's Rome against Jews
There is one side must lose—
Though the outcome may fail to delight us.


135 A.D.

Another rebellion: once more
They attempted to settle the score.
Since “messiah” Bar-Kokhba
(Right up to the Nakba)
The region relapses to war.