Under the cobblestones, Venice Beach!

Everyone will say you are an angel

and you are

even with your agit smut books

and your poems with thighs dripping,

for that’s part of the angelic smirk

as you walk in sneakers someone left

in a room you don’t remember

and hear the transistor radio in sunlight

blaring songs you do remember

but prefer Monk’s keyboard laid down

and for that you will wait til night

so you can pick it up in moonlight

alongside other shells and shards

over the roar of the traffic

and the melancholic friars singing ave marias

unless you find the focaccia next door

along with morning coffee.

No-one can escape that wild mind of yours,

filled with every element of humanity,

every morsel of life,

every crumb from donut shops and bakeries

long since shuttered,

every thought of Debord and Heidegger,

Scholem and Adorno,

along with critics no longer read writing

about writers no longer read

but still full of meaning,

and you remember every

breath exhaled by friends

from LA and SF

and instilled meaning

from an infinite expanse of

mind with electric wires crossing paths,

shorting out, making connections, relighting a whole city.

But to return to that smirk, the smile,

the love that emerged along with that grin

as you lifted that martini glass to bearded mouth

to take in more life and love

and to start over.