Summer 1986 Sunday 5:30AM

Misty morning in Malibu.
Seagulls stitch the sea to a subtle
silver sky. They sputter stridently.
Each elegant gull hovers effortlessly.
Entreating each other. Echos bounce
off the sound of the surf into eternity. The screeching of many a
soliloquy akin to silence.

I sit on the pier. The water before
me washes onto the staccato legs
of tiny waterbirds who wander
in and out of the surf. Little
windblown ***** of ecru and grey
wool. I worship in the womb of
the great goddess ~ nature. I wasn't to know the Creator was watching patiently...

6:30AM
I make my unhurried way up the
pier to my car. A cheap but
comfortable convertable. Nobody
walks in LA. I punch in a tape.
Don Henley. Boys of Summer.

I take PCH up to the incline that
takes you from the beach. Pushing
the pedal slightly as I slide by the
colossal bleached cliffs of
Palacades Park. There the homeless
sleep under the benches dedicated
by friends and family in
rememberance of loved ones.
Small plaques attatched for
posterity.

My hands are on the steering wheel
at 7 and 12 o'clock.I look at the cast
I wear on my right wrist. A token
of rememberance from an angry romance. He and I parted
respectively, if not at all
respectfully. I drive.

7:00AM
Venice beach. Not yet boysterous.
But never boring. The young people
(and old) still bundled together in bed. Saturday night hangovers will
be had by most of the denizens of
Venice beach boardwalk. A grainy
eyed few wander around abstractidly. Shopowners enter
their buildings, their storefronts
almost as small as booths. Graphitti
and giant works of art grace walls
everywhere ~ Jim Morrison and
Venus in workout leggings much
in evidence.

I smoke my cigarette and drink my
hot coffee carefully in the open cafe'.
I consider the eyefest of the crowd
that will congregate here to enjoy
the clement weather.
The cacophony and the clamor.
Touristas and Los Angelinos alike
drawn In by calculating vendors
and coyote souled street performers.
I look forward to seeing the
non conformity usually. But not
today. For now I sit in the quiet cafe'.

Venice beach. Vulpine. Vacuous.
A strangely vunerable venue. The
***** and the beautiful. The talented and the ******.

A street performance pianist trundles his acoustic piano on
casters out onto the boardwalk.
I ask him if I may play. He looks
at my cast doubtfully.
"I can still play..." I tell him.
He ascents and listens thoughtfully
as I play my compositions. He really
likes them. I ****** the ebony and
the ivory with insistant fingers.
The smile on his face is irrepressable. I smile back and we
flirt in self conceous, fitful fashion.
Time to leave.

9:00AM
Radio is on in my car now. A cut
from the musical Chess. One night
in Bangkok makes the hard man
humble... I like the driving beat.
I'm going up I-10, a single blood cell
in the main artery that brings life
to the flesh of this mamouth town.
Traffic is tenuous. A boon here in
this conjested city.

I drive to Fairfax and Sunset, where
I lived with in a tiny one-bedroom
apartment with my mom. An
ambitious actress. I an ambivalent
artist.

Sunset. The Roxy and Whiskey-a-
Go-Go. Cartoon characters Rocky
and Bullwinkle casually cavort on
the top of a building. Billboards
as tall as the Hollywood sign. The
street of broken hearts for many
an actress -slash-model. They
wander about on street corners
looking haughty and haunted.
Waiting for who knows who to
honk. Their dreams have flown
away like the exhailation of smoke
from the mechanical lungs of the
Marlboro Man. Schwab's drugstore
and diner. The place where some
famous starlet was discovered.
Delivered into the arms of the
Hollywood machine. I opt to go
to the Sunset Grill.

11:00AM
I'm walking down Hollywood Blvd.
Perusing shops and persuing
pedestrian pleasures. Everyone
talks of the star-studded sidewalks.
To me they look tarnished and
filthy. Stars from a sultry smog
laden sky come to earth. The names
of some of the folks honored on
them I don't recognise.

I'm here to view movies today.
I'm definitely not going to
Grauman's Chinese Theater.
Been there. Done that. Gave the
very expensive T shirt to
Goodwill. I look around at the
proud and the plebian. The pedantic
and the pathetic. No prostitutes
out yet that I could see. Probably
toppled into bed to sleep
(for once). Deposed kings
and queens of the monarchy of the
night. The homeless hobble along
with their hair matted and askew.
Shopping carts with stuttering
wheels de reguer.

A couple of tourists with Izod shirts,
plaid shorts to the knee and deck
shoes sans socks gaze in a shop
window. It's borded by tarnished
and faded silver garlands... tinsel
Christmas tree.
"Want to buy a mood ring today?"
One of them querys his buddy,
laughingly.

I find my small theater and enter
the air conditioned lobby. I purchase
a soda and pass on the popcorn.
As I enter the theater's modestly
plush, dimly lit cocoon sanctuary
I notice very few patrons are here
for the matinee. GOOD. I finally
watch the premiere product of
Los Angeles. Movie after movie
slides across the screen. The callus
morally corrosive corporations
conspire with the creative to produce
the culmination of many art forms
in one. Cinema.

LA. Languid. Luxurious. Legendary.
Rollicking, raunchy rodeo.
Seaside city. Sophisticated. Spurious.

SPECTACULAR.

8:00PM
I wend my way up Mulholland Dr.
Another tape is playing in the deck.
One of my favorites. David + David.
Welcome to the Boomtown.

I pull over at a deserted vista. From
this viewpoint I can see the city
spread out like a blanketfof brilliance. The gridiron of LA.
Glitzy and glamorous. Generating
little gods and goddesses. A gigantic
gamble for the disingenuous and
gouache. Tinsel town. Titillating.
Tempestuous. Only the very brave
bring their dreams here... or fools
rush in where angels fear to tread.
All but the fallen angels. They thrive.

Oh! If this place could be bottled it
would be such sweet poison. I
look up at the auburn sky and back
down at the breathtaking panorama
The metropolis that is LA with awe
and angst. I carefully stub out my
cigarette and flip it irreverantly
toward the lagoon of lights.

I get in my car to drive home.
Home?
Could this imposing, inspiring,
impossible place be called home?

Well. Home is where the heart is.
And I live in the heart of a dream.
This is the city of dreams...

CITY OF ANGELS.

Soul Survivor
Catherine E Jarvis
(C) 2005

There is a certain lure
About a forbidden fruit
A mentallity with no cure

We want what we are denied
yearning for
that which we are deprived

The desire becomes a lust
Hunger becomes insistant
Sate it we must

A lure with no cure
Being denied and deprived
Sweet lust, which tend we must

The picking of forbidden fruit
the inability to resist
Continue on down this path
To find your problems root

i am
hovering between
me and
my body

i cannot think
i cannot dream
unreal is
what i seem

reality is not existent
its just a concept
the insistant resistance
of playful dreaming

i have just barely
made it
slightly touching the ground
drowning in the cushioned air

i must be suffering from
sleep deprivation
or one too many shots
of *****

air
has no gravity
increasing the longevity
of time

time has stopped
it is infinite
hovering slightly above
the current.

the present.

i fall
just as a star falls
euphoria washes
away from my eyes

reality surrounds me
as my breathing
comes to a stand still

(b.d.s.)

Let me tell you something
That little varmint was afraid of your names
Too much power you had
To show him he he was nothing special
Another poet, what else ya gonne say? A place for him to stay if he could stay in his place
But he' already decided he's a heavy handful of poems wrapped up in his palm
He's not bad. But he ain't Shelly
Lord Byron he is not
So it's no surprise he comes here
With his terra incognito poetry
Starts the alienation process until five days later
They poked fun at my rhyme
The one I wrote about sweet momma? They laughed it to scorn, called it too sentimental
Each in turn found new ways to burn me
Until eventually
They all became voices in my head
And each voice recited one of my wretched poems and I could see I was only fooling myself
Group sessions didn't go so well
I read their poems, superior to mine in every way
I let thier voices tell me what they meant
And it wa comforting until I realized they were all about me and a vast conspiracy to drive me away
Normally I'd figure this out
But the voice began to be belligerent.
"Get out of here hack" , chanted with the insistant persistence of one who wasn't going anywhere until her will had been done.
I had no choice
They had taken up residence in my mind
Now I had to find a way to rid myself of them

CONTNUED NEXT CHAPTER in which somebody gets their way. Who? What? We'll have to wait to find out.

It
ain't
gonna
be
pretty!

My mother left on Sunday.
A ghostly presence walks the
Wooden stairs and flicks the finger-smudged
Spindles lining the path
To my parent's bedroom.

Clocks chime the hour, their bell-
Melodies insist mnemonic
Memories
Of her infinite delight.
She loves clocks. She'd often wake
Before us and sit in her
Favorite chair to listen to
The effect of their orchestrated
Sounds.

They have a white noise quality
More musical than whirred fans
And insistant television.
I've met this sound-off
With distaste.
Since her absence my distaste has transfigured
To homesickness.

The heart throbs in shadows.
I'm a clock whose white face has aged yellow,
Without hands to signal the hour,
With a song on a dented bell.

I wish my tongue did curl in a way
to make my words roll simply off it.
That my extremities may move as
freely as my mind commands them
to do so.

I wish my fingers did not flinch
at the electricity inside of others.
That my heart may be steady
and not frighten me with incessant
speed. I wish it were not so
insistant.

I wish the whites of my eyes
did not surround such wide dark rounds.
That your stare could not incite
such an energy through the tips
of my fingers.

I wish this shivering were out of chill
and not admiration.
That this may be simpler.

Will it ever change?
Will I walk away;
and not feel lost
Will I ever experience this rush
I watch filling lovers limbs.
Raising them higher than our stratosphere

Will I ever float?

Through a stilted gaze
I look,  kept from emotion
and long to feel.
The waves crashing at their toes
Sandy, passionate love rolls like foam
that kisses the shore with bubbly lips.

Will I ever be kissed like that?

my metel chest warms at her sight
More with hope of what could be
Instead of what would be.
Although my mourning persists
beating against my ribs
Insistant
My chest aches at this sight,
I wish no more harm
Although I do not raise one finger.
I exist to observe
My stilted tin kelidescope twisting and peeling away emotion
and I am allowed to see
but not experience.
Never experience.

The burn of the past is in the pain of my fingers
as the clouds of tomorrow loom overhead.
The fear of today should have died, but it lingers
and the key to control is in the purr of a cat.

It asks: “What's that sorrow that you speak of so fondly
and profoundly you cling to in the depth of the night?”
And you cringe and you crouch and you cry so resoundly
that the stars' tumbled tears fill with wisdom and fright.

“Even spiders have hearts that are deemed non-existent,”
says the cat who's own heart has never known cold.
The traces of truth in its words are insistant,
so you crumble and crawl to turn heedless things gold.

pierce my heart
see my lies
there is a pain that i cant deny

rest your blade
between my heart and
my eyes
and so you may see my twisted insides

love that is taken away
is more powerful
than a love that
was gently broken

a brain shattered
by loss
does not help
a weak heart

you ripped the skin
above my forehead
and dripping with blood
you watched as my body shuddered

i begged you to stop
you said no
i asked why?
you said it had been in the name of love

i believed you.

you continued to pierce
this time into my brain
you remain insistant
that all will be better soon

i screamed
and i wailed
from the agony
i could not see

but,
i believed you.

you had one final cut
left to give
you said it was your favourite
and that it would be mine too

you took your wretched blade
and made an incision in my heart
breaking everything that once held
all the memories, all the pain

that was when i stopped believing your lies.

this cut
had been just too agonizing
it cut off the circulation between
mind and body

i could no longer
feel the feelings
that i once did
i missed that

no remorse
no anger
no pain
no love

you had taken away
euphoria chaos
called love
i never could look at anyone
ever the same

that pain
never faltered
even when
you left amongst the shadows

(b.d.s.)

whisperings surround me
and i quickly turn
to accuse the guilty
but no one's there

i am alone

but the voices continue
   insistant

   poking
probing
   my brain
confusing me
causing me the added burden
of worrisome thoughts

sleep doesn't save me
for it's much too short

finding solace in prayer
is beyond my beliefs

exposing
expressing
exemplifying
would provoke no response

so i wallow in discontentment,
   sway in disillusionment
utimately collapsing to the ground
with a heavy heart

and...

...before long
i'm forced to accept
that i've been saddled

with a foolish heart.

the misinterpretation of words
stuttered benign thoughts
of weighty inquisition
insistant upon
explaining themselves
to a lenders ear
but for a moment