Arcata poems on Hello Poetry

James Floss Mar 2019

So, after your interview
Schedule an interval to
Check your recording
And/or flesh-out your notes

Twenty minutes
Or half an hour
Immediately after
With a barista beverage

Get a cuppa coffee
— Wait, this is Arcata…

Get a cup of ORGANIC coffee…
— Et-hem; this is Arcata…

Get a cup of ORGANIC, FREE TRADE, coffeh…
— Uh, wait, this is Arcata…

Get a cup of ORGANIC, FREE TRADE, SHADE GROWN coff…
— So, as this is Arcata…

Get a cup of ORGANIC, FREE TRADE, SHADE GROWN, SONGBIRD SAFE! co…

**** it.
Get a warm cup of Chai tea

— Wait, this IS Arcata…

Sip that soothing cup of Chai tea
While gracefully doing

Tai Chi

Sjr1000 Apr 2016

The Humboldt County Blues

She's texting me from
old L.A.
Heading north on the El Camino Real
driving fast on 101

I'm heading west
from Paradise, Nevada
No work here
It's all shut down

Driving through
Susanville
Hat Creek
Shingletown
Redding
Across the burning Trinity Alps
the river sure is beautiful
My heart is soaring,
just missed that landslide
late last night

Meeting my life in Humboldt County

She, from the South
Me, from the East
We cross that
Redwood Curtain
Right into the heart of the Emerald Triangle

Meeting my true love in Humboldt County

They say the streets
are lined with
green gold

The family "grows,"
up in the hills
where everyone is welcome
to trim scene solutions,
the emerald gardens
with trees six feet high
Glistening buds as big as your fist,
Everyone is smiling
Everyone is high
sure I may reek
of that Marijuana resin
but two hundred dollars a day
flirting all the way
all I can eat
all I can ****
sounds a lot like heaven to me.

I'll be getting that 215
growing plants
as far as the eye can see
Another millennium
with back problems, insomnia and anxiety.
My fortune is just waiting for me.

Meeting my sweet love in Humboldt County

Like an old Woody Guthrie tune
you ain't gonna find nothing
without that dough re me

There ain't no doubt
that ****, so pure
will get you so high
you'll be wishing your still alive
No matter how high you get
There will still be reality.

Gotta get out of this indoor grow
Black mold growing up the walls
The floors are buckling
The ceiling too
The electrical is sparking
Another landlord on the hook
What's a boy to do?

The methamphetamine
The ****** machine
Trying not to blow my face off
with a butane tank
making that concentrated cannabis

Cold and wet
sleeping bag soaked on the beach,
A tent in the Devil's Playground
the homeless encampment
behind the Bayshore Mall
that's what I met
and don't leave your ****,
It'll be gone in a quick minute.

The gardens are beautiful
good chance I'll never see 'em
The man with the ball cap
The big *** truck
holding a shot gun
"Better move on, son,
No trespassing here. "

I'm just
another dread locked kid
on the Arcata Plaza
with a dog I can't take care of

Down in Eureka
on concrete Broadway
Fourth Street
Fifth Street
Old Town
Where the fights break out
The cops they have no patience
Another Drunk in Public
drunk tank
Back on those same streets
at one a.m.

Get too crazy
5150 for an overnight stay,
second floor in County Mental Health,
walls closing in,
Psychiatrist says
"We ain't got nothing for ya,
good luck out there. "

Meeting my sweet love in Humboldt County

Once here
there is no way out
Panhandlers
Hitchhikers
on every corner
No one's giving out
No one's picking up

I'm gonna need my family
to send that Moneygram
Get me on a Greyhound Bus
haven't heard a word from them yet.

Even the police say
No one's gonna accept me,
So they ain't gonna pay.

I've been
Trying to leave a message
for my sweet love,
haven't seen her for a month,
She headed up to Trinidad
with a would be spiritual monk

The Redwoods spiral to the skies
The ranchers own the green
pastured hills
The beaches are vast and empty
The ocean is wilderness wild
waiting for the tsunami
turn your back on the ocean
you may fall in
many have fallen
few survive
on the most exquisite
blue sky day
you've ever seen.

Meeting my true love in Humboldt County.

Inspired by Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City.
For r who told me to write this a couple of years ago. I should add that Humboldt County is considered the Marijuana capital of the U.S., lures many young kids thinking their going to find riches and nirvana.

Matthew Smith Dec 2014

One

Stars on top of stars on top of stars. Blankets of silver snow. I unzipped my sleeping bag, the one I got for 15 dollars at a yard sale in Monterey. I brought my knees to my chest and thought about my friends and California.

Emily was living in a small apartment in Arcata, with a little garden out front that had dandelions and mint and some tomatoes. Everything in her apartment was either bought at a garage sale or on craigslist. Her mom gave her everything else, which was really only the bed and some silverware. I liked her little brown teakettle the most. “Isn’t it cool? Five bucks at a garage sale in good ole’ Moghetto.” She adored these things more than herself and embraced the simple life she held, her bike, garden, and lack of almost everything entirely.

She had taken the semester off to travel, but she never went anywhere, just stayed in that garden all day, boiling water in the kettle for God knows what. There wasn’t money to go anywhere, and what she got from painting fences or apartments was easily spent at the market on chicken, nuts, hummus, eggs, or rice. My God it was wonderful to see her move around that miserable apartment, showing me every little thing she had.

Matthew Smith Dec 2014

3 May 2011

Clothed in unwashed rags,
my body was 20 and inebriated by the journey
I had inherited for myself.
I was on a bus on 101,
heading north to visit a friend
who had been going to school in Arcata, California.

Passing the spectacularly long grapevines,
I wrote long, unending sentences
and hummed them to myself as if they were prayers
from droplets of light above.

And in my long periods of silence,
I thought of what I would do when
I finally arrived at the northern coast.
"First, I think I'll take my shoes off
and dance around a little bit
and dip my feet in the sand.
I'll howl skyward, with my only friends,
my body and the spirit of the sky,"
and I did.

Dylan Nov 2015

Even Though I Forgot Her Name

"Would you like to share my umbrella?"
A voice said behind me,
quiet and reserved,
testing uncertainty with a modest proposal.
It was raining, after all.
Maybe I looked a little forlorn
walking alone along the path.
My pants were soaked and
I was contemplating the pattern
that liquid found through my pants.
Top of the thigh,
middle of the shin,
top of the foot.
I stopped and looked at the voice.
Her head was wrapped with a scarf,
dark brown pools reflected
through the opening of cloth.
"Sure." I said, and stepped inside.
She fussed with the umbrella, said
"This umbrella leaks,
I don't think it was made for the rain.
It must be one of those sun umbrellas.
My head keeps getting wet."
She unwrapped her scarf,
her straight dark hair fell out.
She patted her head.
She said her name.
Maybe I should feel ashamed
that I don't recall her name.
Me: "Where are you off to?"
Her: "Jack Baskin. You?"
Me: "Core West."
Her: "Where's that? By Kerr?"
Me: "The parking structure."
Her: "Oh, I know where that is.
           Do you know what time it is?"
Me: "I dunno, 11:45?" I checked the time.
        "Oh, wow, 11:58."
Her: "I don't have class until 12:30."
Me: "What class?"
Her: "Spanish 4."
And we talked in similar patterns
for the rest of the walk.
She liked the rain, and so did I.
She wished she stayed home.
So did I.
I showed her a path in the forest,
past the makeshift hut
that habitual smokers crafted
to hide with their habits.
I showed her the bench,
she was pleased with surprise.
Her: "How old are you?"
Me: "Oh, twenty..." I hesitated,
doing mental math "...four. You?"
Her: "Twenty-one."
Me: "Ah, I see you're surviving your twenty-first."
Her, laughing: "I lost my ID when I turned 21.
       I didn't do much drinking on my birthday.
       I don't like the clubs, or bars."
I didn't like them either.
Me: "What're you doing when you graduate?"
Her: "I want to join the Peace Corps.
          I want to travel around the world,
         and help people. It's why I study biology."
Me: "Yeah, travel is great. You should go do that."
Her: "Well, I told my parents. They don't want me to.
          I was born in the Philippines.
          My parents immigrated here.
          They want me to be happy and stationary here.
          Not traveling the world, you know?"
I knew.
She reached into her bag, pulled out a banana.
Her: "Would you like some of this banana?"
Me: "Sure."
We talked a bit more, about the dreads
of dealing with box-checking pre-meds,
of the work-load for a graduate student,
of what it's like up in Arcata.
Twenty minutes disappeared
quicker than is fair.
We left towards the engineering hall.
We parted at the parking structure.
Her: "Farewell, it was nice talking to you, Dylan."
Me: "Aye, it was a pleasure. Farewell."
I felt bad I didn't remember her name,
but I'll remember the unsolicited kindness,
and try to pass it along all the same.

Matthew Smith Dec 2014

Untitled

I flew my plane over these little hills
and thought about my life. I saw all the cities,
Arcata, Eureka, Redding, and an incredible
violet glow along the northern coast of California.
21 years old. I landed in a town that was lively
with families and college students. I sat at a
café near the ocean and the sand, cold from
the winter air. I no longer felt empty
when I saw a pretty girl holding hands with
a handsome young man. That used to disturb me,
but in that moment, I was satisfied
with the Milky Ways of my wanderings.
I read my books until midnight
and decided to lay on the starlit sand.
Golden flicker of lights about my kingdom.

Giovanni Pascoli

Il Santuario

Come un'arca d'aromi oltremarini,
il santuario, a mezzo la scogliera,
esala ancora l'inno e la preghiera
tra i lunghi intercolunnii dè pini;
e trema ancor dè palpiti divini
che l'hanno scosso nella dolce sera,
quando dalla grand'abside severa
uscìa l'incenso in fiocchi cilestrini.
S'incurva in una luminosa arcata
il ciel sovr'esso: alle colline estreme
il Carro è fermo e spia l'ombra che sale.
Sale con l'ombra il suon d'una cascata
che grave nel silenzio sacro geme
con un sospiro eternamente uguale.

Giovanni Pascoli

Il Santuario

Come un'arca d'aromi oltremarini,
il santuario, a mezzo la scogliera,
esala ancora l'inno e la preghiera
tra i lunghi intercolunnii dè pini;
e trema ancor dè palpiti divini
che l'hanno scosso nella dolce sera,
quando dalla grand'abside severa
uscìa l'incenso in fiocchi cilestrini.
S'incurva in una luminosa arcata
il ciel sovr'esso: alle colline estreme
il Carro è fermo e spia l'ombra che sale.
Sale con l'ombra il suon d'una cascata
che grave nel silenzio sacro geme
con un sospiro eternamente uguale.

Giovanni Pascoli

Il Santuario

Come un'arca d'aromi oltremarini,
il santuario, a mezzo la scogliera,
esala ancora l'inno e la preghiera
tra i lunghi intercolunnii dè pini;
e trema ancor dè palpiti divini
che l'hanno scosso nella dolce sera,
quando dalla grand'abside severa
uscìa l'incenso in fiocchi cilestrini.
S'incurva in una luminosa arcata
il ciel sovr'esso: alle colline estreme
il Carro è fermo e spia l'ombra che sale.
Sale con l'ombra il suon d'una cascata
che grave nel silenzio sacro geme
con un sospiro eternamente uguale.

Johnny Noiπ Jan 2019

Mama Is Easy

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— The End —