Los Angeles

1.

I see hills bloated by steroid waters

forgotten desert strangled by the quilt of suburbia

plaid pattern of asphalt and plaster

ever unfolding

suffocating the land.

~ 

Freeways crawl with motorized haste

women and men drive and drive

a better life for the children

or the hijos

and it works.

~

I am one of those children

a child of an unlikely metropolis

one of millions

with unfathomable freedoms

unnatural freedoms.

~

2.

Billboards and bus stop ads sing in color,

Growth! Growth!

~

But I feel another call

muted incantations

on hot dusty evenings,

The past! The past!

~

3.

Los Angeles the air is grey and sharp

children laugh through asthmatic gasps.

Los Angeles we are running out of water

water that was never ours.

Los Angeles why are you building more tract homes?

We are in trouble Los Angeles

and I am getting tired.

~

4.

Once upon a time in Los Angeles

 there were no palm trees

or swimming pools

or freeways.

~ 

Light brown hills and people

 exalted in desert sunshine

sipping clean air

no asthma

instead they had space

Los Angeles was dry honest and alive.

~ 

Daddy

is this a true story?

~ 

5.

To those in love with palm trees and December citrus

you love a lie

you love an ugly history

fed by stolen water

jazzed by a century of cheap fuel.

The lie will end soon enough.

~ 

6.

We can not risk

another generation of children

unaware

of the desert beneath this quilt of suburbia.

~ 

The dusty truth

of this great land

is nothing to be ashamed of.

~ 

7.

Let the children run wild

let them breathe dust

not the lawnmower fumes and freeway exhaust.

Let the children love this land for what it really is,

a desert.

~ 

For we will only protect

what we love

and we will only love

what we know.

~ 

Maybe the children

might unweave this quilt

just a little bit

and let Los Angeles

breathe.