Polly Geller: California Poets Part 8, One Poem
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
Polly Geller
One Poem
L.A.
Excerpts
Because in this city of farce one fidgets to see clearly.
This morning the Two North, unfamiliar under a canopy of fog.
Because nothing but the natural order of things matters; an absence, a blessing. Four days ago, the woodpeckers' eggs hatched. She goes in first as he stands watch.
At the entrance to the 101 North, on Bellevue and Echo Park, the black jeep, a phone in the driver's hand. Entropy, dismissive of green signals.
Honk if you like reading.
To enter the hammock of abandon as one slips into the Ganges,
the lone tourist buying cardboard, candle and flowers to float Float and come clean.
Rolling west onto less peaceful terrain, to find the arroyo seco,
a devil of an earthquake, the chill of civil unrest and always pining for the Pacific.
Music music and no one here can march in time -
Offer up the periodic table and spin a diamond for each year, each tooth, and pray no more. Build these dreams then where? South? Under ocean floors? On a floating island of plastics?
And some have never been kissed.
Author Bio:
Polly Geller is a Professor of Writing and Romance Languages at ArtCenter College of Design. This is her first collection of poems. Her MFA thesis at Otis College of Art & Design, The Porthole (2011), a translation of Adriano Spatola's L'Oblo (1964), was published by Otis Seismicity Editions. Her poems have been published by University of Chicago Press (2017) and Atelier Editions (2020). Her first collection of poems, Off The Menu, is available through: pollyegeller@gmail.com.
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