Chapter 1 

June 25, 2021

I’m taking the 260 Metro bus northbound, up the mountain. I see the old man out the window, whose face I always admire in passing, as the 260 bus route always goes by the car-wash on Main Street, where he’s usually, if he’s working that day, out among the parked and waiting cars, dressed in his blue jumpsuit, with all the other blue jumpsuits, waxing. I admire his face because he looks just like my Abuelo- a somewhat chiseled, oval-shaped face, dark-skinned and handsome in a detached, wry sort of way (I, too, have the same good looks as my Abuelo), sly but with a wide, thin set of eyes which sit over formal cheekbones, and with wrinkles that give his already wise-seeming face a posture of happiness and gravitas, and, under a thin mustache, an even wiser and handsomer smile. Yes, every time over the past few years of my taking this specific bus-route (I used to take it to work daily, today I am taking it leisurely up the way to the stretched-out base of Mount Baldy), the Metro 260, north and south, up and down Atlantic Boulevard and Fair Oaks, I always stop whatever I’m doing as the bus passes the car-wash on Main Street, whether it be dozing off, or reading, or daydreaming, or staring ogle-eyed at some cute bosoms passing by along the sidewalks, to look out the window for the old man who looks like my Abuelo and check if he’s working that day, to admire his ancestral and immediate likeness to my own. Grandson of Narcissus.

         Today he was there, and his likeness stood again akin to my life’s process, yet this time this pricelessness was exhibited through another part of the rhythm. Allow me to explain, all my thoughts merging with my pen as I scribble in my notepad on the bus.

         He had the top long-sleeve of his blue jumpsuit off and hanging down behind him like the fallow skirt of a horse’s tail, his white shirt fresh-breasted among the afternoon airs and alight in the sunny brightness, and as we passed him on our way up Atlantic Boulevard I could tell he was just getting off work by the casual settlement of his clothing, probably just getting off the morning shift. There he was, talking with the other blue jumpsuits who still were fully uniformed and doubtless on the clock, and I felt so glad to see his life again mirroring mine in a way, as I’m off now, too. Though, not off work or a mere morning shift- no, I’m off America, off the United States of America. Bound for Italy, and I’m not coming back.

         No sir, I’m to be I’italiano from here on out. I’m turning thirty years old in two weeks, and I’m getting married, too.

Chapter 2

I’m sitting under a pine tree up at the base of Mt. Wilson. I drank up the last of my water a while back, I brought two bottles with me, and I’ve been reading the Kerouac I brought along.

         The sun’s baking my toes and the banana peel that I left by my toes. The shade of the tree lays out, for now, enough shaded space for most of my body, but my toes are sticking out in the sun like toes sometimes do from a blanket while asleep.

         I’m studying the Italian language. I’m to become one, after all. But first, it’s 6:08 PM, June 26, 2021, and fa caldo, fa caldo up on this mount under this here pine tree. I thank it spontaneously for my notepad, as it is a tree, and I reach for my coffee.

         A poet, like I, will act out these tricks of the trade…

         He’ll buy a venti black coffee and set off on a northbound bus, head out of the city’s suburbs where he has his current place of dwelling (not for long), and head on up into the foothills and the steady-climbing mountainous regions of the northern outskirts. Less housing, more wildlife, more space to breathe and catch some quiet, and some solitude, if he’s lucky.

         He will, without planning (these tricks of the trade are done through him, not by him), do things like so…

         He’ll buy the coffee at 10 AM when he sets out, he’ll take the two hour bus ride north, get off at the last stop, the one nearest the base of Mt. Wilson’s breadth, and he’ll walk the remainder to the trailhead.

         He’ll hold his venti all the while and he’ll hold it without sipping it, with the green-stick stopper still in its place, and with it settled this way he’ll climb the trail, and, a few miles up, he’ll take a nap under a pine, sleeping under the soft shade and wind and over the long view of the San Gabriel Valley and L.A.

         When he awakens, and he will have been awakened by the soft, bite-kiss of a single red ant which happened to fall off of one of the lower branches of the pine which he'll then be utilizing, it will be about 6 PM.

         He’ll then look out at his sunburnt feet, which have been stuck out in the heat, wiggle his twisted toes, and then look at his watch. He will stretch his arms and yawn considerably. He will feel, by way of the wind, the nicely set hilted layer of sweat all over his body. He will set himself up from his reclined position, sit up straight, and meditate for a few minutes with his eyes closed. Then, with his eyes open, taking in the heated view. He will reach for some water, remember that he has already finished both bottles, and then he will sigh. He will think fond thoughts about his fiancée, and set his eyes upon the venti cup of black coffee which will still have its green stopper in it, there to his side. The shade, by then, will have inched its way to the edge of the coffee’s placement on its level round of ground. He’ll grab his notepad and write about the bus ride he enjoyed hours earlier, when he saw the old man at the car-wash who looked like his Abuelo. When he is finished writing the small sketch, he will pick up the coffee, take out the green stopper, take a first sip, and continue with his writing. He will keep writing as he sips his coffee- the coffee as warm and dry as the California air all around him. For, what’s poetry without these wild and free self-hand-me-downs (and ups)?

He will then write a poem; untitled.

Air’s

In my mouth

Mixing fresh pine-needle

Green on tongue.

I picked the fresh pine-needle

From a bunch grown on level

With my eyes, a green bit,

To stave off

The warm coffee

Throat grope.

& it’s workin’

Here comes the poet,

If he ever stops daydreaming

About his own loving destiny.

He, as he writes

And sweats,

Upon his notepad

Under a dry pine-tree,

Can see L.A.’s downtown

Silhouette

There flowered dim

Behind the Eagle Rock foothills,

& as he is scribbling

He compares himself in his head and his heart

To Kerouac and the greats,

& thinks to himself, sweating,

“How to be a good poet, how?”

Enter A trio of fat, shirtless young men

Walking down the trail talking loudly and with emotion,

One says to another as they pass the poet, not

Noticing him sitting behind the tree there scribbling,

“I wanna be a real gangster, I wanna make

A business out of it, and those talkin’

Shit, all that shit, a mi, porque a mi?”

& the poet listens

Behind the dry pine.

The wind, gentle, says nothing

In particular.

The poet begins to sing to himself softly,

The Bare Necessities in German,

Remembering his Swiss friends from Zurich

Who had taught him the song in their tongue

While he was travelling the European continent back in 2019.

He’s sitting, sunburnt,

& the wind is blowing soft.

The pine taste gone

The pine-greens he spit-out.

He sips his coffee

& thinks about nothing

In particular.

The poet waits for

The next stray red ant

Or the next boon of dry dialogue, maybe his own

Inner dialogue,

& down in the valley

Millions flock the supermarkets and

Stations,

& here on the mount,

Under the dry pine,

The poet picks another fresh green needle

From the lower branches

And he sips from his humanity-

Last sips of Los Angeles,

Before the coming goodbye.

Chapter 3

And the poet, now on the bus, now back down in the sidewalked quals of the sunny suburbs below Wilson, now on the 260 southbound, heading through Alta Dena, sheds tears as he dips his sunburnt and sandalled toes back into the impressive poverty of civilization.

         He is thinking of Paramahansa Yogananda’s words, to paraphrase, “Remind God that He put us here, this is not only our doing. Remind Him that He must help us, that we alone didn’t do this to ourselves, for He created us. Remind Him.”

         The poet sniffs roughly the somber and about-to-be-wiped (for, he is writing, he is busy at the moment, too busy to pay any mind to the dripping nose-run) snot back in his nostrils as he writes further words about the wonders he sees in the world around him, all the while cherishing his tears, cherishing the stream-like, gentle way they fall down his face, cherishing his prayerful moment, and also cherishing the rising sense of holy and mental equilibrium which just now spread itself through his chest (he just downed a well-needed Vitamin Water, which he bought from a gas-station market after walking the four miles down to the bus-stop, dehydrated from drinking his venti coffee up on the mount, now dehydrated no more). He is cherishing, also, the 260 bus route. The driver and the patrons, all.

Chapter 4

The lesson today, the poet thinks, is just this: he must, among his city-bound observations, break bread with these people, eat with and among them, and admire their stark sadness which lays itself out for him to see, without thinking that he can do anything to help them, without judging their situations and circumstances, without thinking poetic thoughts about how he can help them in their various distress.

         Rilke is quotable here, so our poet thinks, taking a well-oft quoted excerpt from one of his letters to Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, where Rilke describes the spell which the city has cast over his senses, though in Rilke's case, the city was Paris, not Los Angeles, "What a reality in this city, I marvel again and again at how pain stands there, misery, horror, each like a bush, blossoming. And every stone in the pavement is more familiar to one than a pillow anywhere else, is a stone utterly and entirely, hard to the touch, but yet as though descended from the stone that Jacob put under his head. La mort du pauvre qui expire, la tete sur une de ces pierres, est peut-etre douce quand-meme."

         Alas, he must keep up with all of his rising sentimental observations without thinking poetic thoughts about how he can help other people. This satori came to the poet later, near the end of the day, after the poet entered an independent bookstore down on Cesar Chavez Avenue just after sunset. The man who worked in the bookstore had a broken heart. The poet could tell immediately. The man exuded heartbreak. The way in which the man answered the poet’s kindly questions, and stayed taciturn, and mentioned here and there an ex-girlfriend, helped to give it away. The poet, decidedly trying to cheer up the man, donated the two books of poetry which he had on his person, Kerouac’s Collected Poems, a hardbound, and a paperback copy, City Lights’s, of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. He wasn’t sure how this would help but he knew he was saving the money he had, so, not wanting to purchase a book he didn’t need, he donated those he no longer needed instead, and departed the bookstore. 

         The eyes of the man, distant and unthankful, were the last thing the poet saw as he exited.

Chapter 5 

June 26, 2021

And here we are again by the east-facing (Biltmore Hotel facing) window, up on the 3^rd floor of Los Angeles’s Central Library, enjoying another day, starting it all again in first person, among all the Angelenos and bookstalls and books (specifically Bukowski’s Hollywood and a collection of Catullus’s poetry).

         As I grabbed the small, round, creaky stool to sit on from its place underneath the computer desktop back in the isle, I sighed to myself and thought fondly back upon all the countless days I've spent here over the years, reading the last-year’s poetry magazines and books in this very spot by the window which overlooks the row of stringy magnolias that leer their high-blooms down Hill Street. It’s been a favorite perch of mine over the years, and it is one which I have not had the chance to frequent as of late due to the epidemic. Happy reading, sincerely.

         But as for me, I shall continue writing. Sono innamorato di una ragazza delle Alpi. La sposerò, ma prima dobbiamo sistemare una piccola situazione. Non ho un anello, né ho soldi per comprarne uno. In effetti, non ho quasi soldi, perché la maggior parte dei miei soldi è andata a comprare un biglietto aereo di sola andata da dodicimila dollari per un volo diretto a lei. Arrivarci è la cosa. Ma devo prendere quell'anello, vedi. Forse se scrivo una storia e la vendo posso comprarle un anello. Facciamolo. In other words, I am getting married, and no, I don't have enough cash my pockets to buy a ring. She loves me anyway, mi amore. And the Italian consulate never asked to see any ring, they merely wanted to make sure my papers were in order.

         We gotta come up with a narrative that makes sense. This postmodern fad which is exhibited through my use of my circling and self-circling mental capacity for self needs to take a small break from itself to focus on the real thing, the narrative that it's trying to bring out of the hat, and yet the rabbit keeps taking over (a symbolic image taken from a recent article on writing by Tom Robbins, rightly, as he is the constant bestiality-referencing weirdo), so we must gain control and do the trick right, and without over-sexual premises like those Tom Robbins exposes himself with (his general readership would have a heart attack if he stopped being disgusting and overtly and overly sexual in his themes and storylines and characters, but I digress, let them enjoy his "genius", and I'll make due with mine).

         You damn rabbit, tricks are for kicks, not you. Now, back in the hat, and come out and do the thing, the narrative thing. There we go.