THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

I am in here. Hidden behind  layers of  paint  the pentimento  of this poem still longing to be seen I am in here. A message in a bottle cast into the very same sea That I used to swim in uncorked Like a pliant pollywog In between  My father’s patient bowed legs At the salty, Shell-slathered edges of a once upon a time Atlantic shoreline. I am in here. Sending out signals drawing hieroglyphics  writing in the mystical code of The carefully selected word Which are like doe-eyed dogs In a kennel  who speak in  the universal sign language of  The desperately waving tail Aching to be loved. and pleading to be taken home.

In days past Unlike the no longer here my daily commute  was aboard a most reassuring wind The kind that blew kisses to sailboats And made sheer curtains perform a secret summertime striptease. I would make my way past a battalion of trees Dressed in their army greens Who quietly sacrificed their Lives to defend my right to sadness And passed a playground Whose memories to this day I continue to plagiarize and rewrite in order to tell the story of my mom Who always smelled like the exhale of roses And hemorrhaged from her thorns And my dad Who discovered early on That despite his outsized fears It was the little things in life That brought him comfort like the cordiality of chestnuts And the succulence of peaches slurped over a sink. The wind carried me faithfully Right on schedule Right on time. For years. For always. Past incidences and landmarks And towering monuments of regret. Until now. For despite its infallibility The wind has forsaken me And left me here in quarantine Wh

The curvy ramble With its fallen infantry of leaves Lit by the epitaph of the sun Does not lead me forward. Every step, Orchestrated by the final gasp of A snapping twig, Escorts me back... To my mom, Waltzing with her  Carpet sweeper partner Singing with Sinatra Who crooned directly to her   From the cathedral radio of her  Bobby Soxer heart Still dreaming of kisses to come Despite the sadness  That raged through her veins Like an uncontainable prairie wildfire. To my dad, Slapped silly by Skin Bracer And the slow death hours of a Salesman Sneaking Chuckles Like the boy he secretly wished He could be again Behind the citadel of an afternoon newspaper As he sank into the mother arms of his chair Whose cushion had Memorialized his head  Like the hand and shoe imprints at Graumman’s Chinese Theater. The moments that come to me Are like that battlefield of leaves  That lie along with the ramble By the thousands when they were still  Fresh recruits  so green  And hopeful And cherished by t

I miss walking barefoot On a rolling tide of meadow grass Like Jesus himself strutting high atop one very green Galilee I miss promenading Like Chaplin past the silent cyclorama of Eastside shops I miss being swept off my feet By that temptress, pizza ,  whose seductive fragrance leads me directly into the arms of Ray. I miss greeting well-groomed dogs like returning war heroes and thanking them for their service. I miss the currency exchange of A seconds-long smile with a passing, impossibly pretty girl. I miss the meditative stroll Through the cornfield maze of a bookstore In search of meaning Or for someone who simply understands me. But most of all I miss the companionship of impulses Which, in normal times, send me on adventures of enlightenment In towering cathedrals and skyscrapers Even though I have secretly known Ever since I was a little boy, that they are really recovery missions In search of the remains of my long ago broken heart which to th