By Edward Hirsch

Green Night
(Summer, 1982)

We walked down the path to breakfast.
The morning swung open like an iron gate.

We sat in Adirondack chairs and argued
for hours about the self—it wasn’t personal—

and the nature of nature, the broken
Word, the verse of God in fragments.

We trotted back and forth to readings.
The trees were the greenest I had ever seen.

We cut bread from a large brown loaf
at a long wooden table in the mountains.

A farmer hayed the meadows
and the afternoon flared around us.

Pass the smoky flask. Pass the cigarettes:
twenty smoldering friends in a package.

We swam in the muddy pond at dusk.
The sky was a purple I had never seen.

Someone was always hungover,
scheming with rhymes, hanging out.

Nothing could quench our thirst for each other.
At the bonfire, we flamed with words.

The houses were named after trees.
I slept with someone at the top of a maple.

It was a green night to be a poet in those days.
We didn’t care if the country didn’t care about us.

This elusive "it"

pronoun, nominative it, possessive its or (Obsolete or Dialect) it, objective it; plural nominative they, possessive their or theirs, objective them; noun
4.(used to represent a concept or abstract idea understood or previously stated): It all started with Adam and Eve. He has been taught to believe it all his life.
9.(used in referring to a source not specifically named or described): It is said that love is blind.

Oceans overflow with it
skies beam in extremity of it
souls gravitate towards it

Rays extend my heart
each to its own direction
and length

This sensation of thankless joy
overwhelms my desires-

To bottle this feeling would leave me in
complete ecstasy

With glee or simple acceptance
of being-
the illumination occurs,
replenishing the drought all endures
during loss of love.

The deplorable crime:
Not all ever taste a drop.

Naming of Travels

To-day we have naming of travels. Yesterday,
we had shopping. And tomorrow morning,
we shall have what to do after booking a flight. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of travels. Rio de Janeiro
captivates like coral in all the neighboring beaches,
And to-day we have naming of travels.

This is the North American continent. And this
is the South American continent, whose use you will see,
when you are given your map. And this is a credit card
which in your case you have not got. The airplanes
hold in their luggage, fully packed,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is Antarctica, which is always avoided
during a blizzard. And please do not let me
see anyone using the shipping boats to get there. You can do it quite easy
if you have a warm cap on your head. The Eskimos
Are brawny and adaptive, never letting anyone see
Any of them catching their dinner.

And this you can see is Europe. The purpose of this
is to visit the historical sites, you see. We can sight see
quickly or slowly: we call this
being a tourist.And quickly or slowly
the Americans are assaulting and fumbling the Bobbies
They call it being a tourist.

They call it being a tourist: it is perfectly easy
If you have a warm cap on your head: like the traveler's checks,
and the plane ticket, and the cultural food, and the double-decker bus
which in our case we have not got, and the Eskimos
silent and adaptive in all of the journey and the
Americans going quickly and slowly
For to-day we have naming of travels.

Cycling Trivialities

Too blind to know your best.
Hurrying through the forks without
regrets.
Different now,
every step feels like a mile.
All the lights seem to flash and pass you by.
So how's it gonna be.
When it all comes down you're cycling trivialities.
Don't know
which way to turn.
Every trifle becoming big concerns.
All this time you were chasing dreams,
without knowing what you wanted them to mean.
So how's it gonna be. When it all comes down
you're cycling trivialities.
Who cares in a hundred years from now.
All the small steps, all your shitty clouds.
Who'll remember all the players. Who'll remember
all the clowns. So how's it gonna be. When it all comes down
you're cycling trivialities.
-Jose Gonzalez

Time Out
by Mark Smith-Soto
The gift of death glows through the October afternoon.
Nothing stranded in the seasons belongs to eternity.
But I feel like a god sitting on my back porch.

Only a god would look to the left like this
and understand the redness of maple leaves
and hear the cardinal shiver in the holly

and feel the sun and cold wind sweep
through the porch screens and not care
what time it is, or what time is,

barely remembering when things were different,
the azaleas aflame, the lawn a velvet rug,
the loved woman wandering somewhere in

a poem. And this moment too will end, is ending,
the acorns pattering on the roof are saying so
with the fanfare of their leave-taking,

the gray neighbor dragging her recyclables to the curb
is saying so, even the geese calling over the house
proclaim I am not a god, no, not a god —

but my hearing’s tuned beyond any murmurings,
the afternoon stretches on, golden and heedless,
and death itself is just half-listening.

It all starts with grey hair

I wonder what their lives are like together? Two men, grey haired: one in full pony- the other groomed silky like a grandmother's- sit near me on a lonely bus. I couldn't help but glance twice as I notice their matching white soccer socks pulled up a few inches past ankle length. Further along their fit, curly-haired legs hangs their almost identical olive shorts at the knee. As we ride further through our six minute bus ride, the pony-haired man starts a conversation loud enough to satisfy, or annoy the bus travelers of six. It isn't so much that he is feeding words to and from someone, but that he is spitting them out loudly enough to evoke a sort of wisdom in his tone of voice- quaint enough to match his grey hairs. Although the techno music playing softly aloft the bus is nice, I decide to listen to what this intriguing old man has to say. "I live next to Alvera's." If I was a native, I would know exactly where he was talking about. It is probably some little Mexican stand the Angelenos go to for a late night pick-me-up of mouth-numbing hot sauce drizzled on a mountain of green tacos. I must say, southern California knows how to prepare a mean Mexican dish, for obvious reasons. A thought enters my mind at that given moment: Why can't I live here? I always dreamed of the romantic, bohemian lifestyle of Los Angeles: going to concerts every other night and having a circle of friends who only know how to play the guitar and paint a masterpiece of modern interpretive art. But that is just a dream. A dream often reminisced when I come to visit a different artery of LA each time. But being alive and sitting next to a real-live Los Angeles native made my want even greater. "That's the street I grew up on" That one? "Yeah, I lived here my whole life." That's a nice street.


My senses came to me at that second. I took a look outside the Plexiglas and noted Los Feliz on the street sign. A town hip but edgy enough for people in their mid-twenties to reside. Not as easy as say Beverly Hills. The desire in me is growing now. More because I see what I could have. Do you see it? Probably not by the way I describe this snow globe world in my mind. Do I really want it though? Meaning, would I like it once I commit myself to actually moving? I have no choice but to make the best of it. It could go terribly bad, though. If that circle of friends doesn't blossom then I have no choice but to exist in a solitary manner, trying to make it through the day and prove to my parents I was right in choosing this life. The one I want so desperately. Right? The one that in fact leads to misery. For it is the dream that beauty thrives in, Not the reality.


Griffith Park passes by my dreamy window: again my wants and imagination take lead of me. I strive for a loft on this fuzzy, urban boulevard. That would be it. I would have come! No more thoughts of my future reality living in a cardboard box equivalent to an apartment for one. Wooh. Sounds like a nice box. Actually an apartment equal in size to a box is more like it. I would be producing my free lance articles an hour before due time. Coffee-ring stains would line my "nightstand" composed of books entitled: So You Want To Be A Journalist. "Retro" coffee cups from the mid-nineties would fill my cupboard up to the top. A nice benefit is that they also serve as cereal, soup and ice-cream dishware at the same time! Now that's innovation. I don't mind. I would sacrifice it all: the glamour in the details of fine living to obtain the LA life.


Ding! Get off the bus and to your home now- your time dreaming is up.


But wait. There's those guys again, walking next to another pair of men from the same bus. They look happy soaking up the sun and enjoying one of the day's simplistic gifts, such as a bus ride down Los Feliz. Who knows where they are going. Their lives don't look too far off then mine. Perhaps it's my Gatsby of a dream that is too remote to even consider anymore. It's just a thought. My thought. A place I can visit each time I read this.

A new love to my ears:

"Ferraby Lionheart wants to be like Gene Wilder.He wants people to care about the planet.He wants people to care about other people.He wants a garden, and some chickens.He was born in LA, although it is often written that he was born in Nashville.This is because he grew up there.And perhaps because his music sounds a little country sometimes.His sister watched Mary Poppins a lot when he was a kid, so maybe that’s why he likes show tunes so much.His 8th grade Algebra tutor had a guitar. That’s where he got the idea.He practiced singing to Chet Baker records when he went to art school in Chicago.Ferraby started making 4-track recordings when he was 18.They might have been a little crappy.He kept trying to write songs for a long time.He moved back to LA because Chicago was too cold.He tried being a grown up, but it wasn’t very good.He is pretty smart.But not that smart.He served pizzas for a little while.Jon Brion played shows next door, and somehow Jon knew one of his songs and invited him on stage one night.He was so nervous.Ferraby had a rock band, but after a few years he got sick of it.He’d rather sing softer."

From "On The Road"

Across this plateau the big manufacturing town of Monterrey sent smoke to the blue skies with their enormous Gulf clouds written across the bowl of day like fleece. Entering Monterrey was like entering Detroit, among great long wall of factories, except for the burros that sunned in the grass before them and the sight of thick city adobe neighborhoods with thousands of shifty hipsters hanging around doorways and whores looking out of windows and strange shops that might have sold anything and narrow sidewalks crowded with Hongkong-like humanity.

I need you so much closer

Goodbye.
I haven't said that, nor will I ever.
There is no need to end something so raw.
My heart tugs to leave you and the memories under the covers in my mind.
The for sale sign is just a formality,
And yet it stabs the bank of my memories.
Your home and the recollection of life past will be wrapped up inside me,
The time will come to release. Not now, though.


Romantic your life was.
It still dances down Yale Avenue, and inside the Village Grill where we shared many a milkshake and cheeseburgers long ago.
Summers when we both could walk around the block and stop to play in the sandlot.
How simply beautiful the dreams of others were possessed within you
and the home you brought to life.
Pretty could never sum up your love, face or life.

I want what you had. I don't want it now in present day,
but in the exact form when you left your skates in his car,
exactly when you took your first breathe of married life,
and when you cried in the kitchen holding me.

You could have chosen differently.
You could have been dancing with Fred or laughing with Clark. But, what good would that do when you lived out the incredibly satisfying life you were given.
No, all was right and all was as is should have been.

I was there mostly all the time.
I wanted to give you my sight, and share with you my travels of the grand world.
You lived the beautiful life. I can only imagine.
I have my sight to see and reflect on all that you have been submerged in.
No sight was alloted to you,
For you were the beauty I saw.

You'll never know how much I adore you.
Maybe you did.
But I want you to know I love you,
You're safe now.

L'ete

Quote of the moment

"I go by no name no label and no title. To label me is to limit me, to chain me, to the convictions and prejudices of the human mind. No, I'd rather remain untitled, free to exist, free to soar, and free to love."