You're a contemporary gipsy with thirteen crafts to sell,
A scarf, a ring, a falcon's wing, ten entrances to Hell,
Your medeival cart and horse now a credit card and car,
With twenty yards of fabric your sole key to Gibraltar.
And a black girl in the ghetto braided yarn into your hair,
"Fifteen dollars and the answer to the Virgin Mary's stare,"
So you traded Satan's Bible for the trinkets and the thread,
The cash in your back pocket for a packaged loaf of bread,
And you drive onto the asphalt with all your windows down,
Sun shining through the tinted glass, afraid to turn around,
But just as that decisive thought should wander through your mind,
A boy and his classic guitar you passed and left behind.
"Destiny," you murmur then, and pull off the busy road,
You wave him to your caravan to wordlessly behold.
Now you have a colleaque also bent on western shores,
With his own tales of bribery, liquor, and ten cent whores,
Your loins say it is love and your heart wants to agree,
But this dangerous wayfarer is as of yet a mystery,
And you come across a marketplace with exotic goods for sale,
Cockerels and magic drinks and oddly scented ale,
Yet the one thing that you seek the most can only be for trade,
The sandals on your feet for a skirt and coins, homemade.
So barefoot on your pedals, barefoot on the street,
The minstrel boy strumming songs of girls you've yet to meet,
Racing west on the heated tarmac of America's highway,
Your quest to angel's stronghold still two thousand miles away,
And when you lay down in the backseat for a single night of sleep,
He presses wanting lips to yours and lets the kiss run deep,
"You'll dance barefoot in Los Angeles to the tune of my guitar,
The beating of your calloused feet telling them who you are,
You'll kick up dust and dismal and your hair will be like snakes,
Twirling like a madwoman past twightlight and dawnbreak."
You sat up straight and turned the keys and pressed the pedal down,
And though the engine burned aloud, his guitar was all the sound.
By morning the tires had been buried in the sand,
And you'll dance like giddy children, only ever touching hands,
A contemporary gipsy and the boy she most adored,
Dancing barefoot in Los Angeles, the gloried western shores.
"It's sweet and bitter taste has left me wretched, wretching on all fours,
Los Angeles, I'm yours."

11/17/2005

Author's Note: Last two lines from The Decemberists - Los Angeles I'm Yours, the song that helped inspire this poem.

Posted on 11/17/2005
Copyright © 2024 Eli Skipp