Four Paragraphs About L.A.

L.A. reccurs in my dreams. Why so? I walk through its downtown at night (do not try this at home) bumping into lost loves and friends. I take its light rail from Long Beach through scary, mystifying Compton to the foothills and back, I fly into LAX and out of it. L.A. L.A. L.A.

O Santa Monica roller-blading tarts, O British expatriates at an English bar, O Australian tea tree growing horizontally on the promenade, O Lonely suburban wasteland in bright technicolor, O lonely office on Wiltshire with a Muhammad Ali cardboard cut-out. O glass offices, O Mormon temple, L.A. L.A. L.A.

L.A. is my favourive forest, slender palms - such a variety, spanish rooftiles, barbed-wire fences around one story self-storage facilities, Champagne flutes on the strip, overlooking the twilighted truth. Watts towers rising over all other trees, like a cluster of General Shermans.

And at night the old cars zoom east of Venice, lusting and lonely like overworked janitors. It's not a bad place, L.A. L.A., I'd like to go back there, but then, I'd like to go back everywhere.