Richard Garcia: California Poets Part 11, Five Poems

Richard Garcia

October 20th, 2026

California Poets: Part XI

Richard Garcia

Five Poems

Roadside Attractions in California

O won't you come away with me

to the Winchester Mystery house

on Winchester Avenue in Winchester California

where we can hold hands in a reflecting room

you on one side of the wall and me perhaps

in the next room or the attic.

In a dining room we may straddle the San Andreas Fault

one foot on a divergent plate boundary

the other on a convergent plate boundary

you all silver mica, me blueschist, and we

shall do the splits where the continents drift apart.

Although we shall never really drift apart

because only faults make straight lines in nature 

and gravity will have no gravitas over us.

We can float down the hallways and rise

up stairways to the gables from which

we observe the roving hole in the midnight sky

or we may tumble through a trapdoor

and find ourselves in a dark room

where Tiffany stained glass windows

glow in the dark and lamps burn

without candles or electricity.

Dark matter will not be so dark to us

my love, as we hold each other in a sinking bed

of pillow lava where we may disappear together

into the floor into a ceiling into rooms that unfold

beneath us into other rooms, and other rooms forever.

Is California Burning  

Hitler calls up from his bunker, Wolf-Haven, hidden deep in the mountains of Bavaria, and asks Göring, Is California burning? Yes, Mein Führer, replies Göring, California is burning. And Notre Dame, is Notre Dame burning? Yes, Mein Führer, replies Göring, Notre Dame is burning. And the Eiffel tower, is that still standing? Not fallen, Mein Führer, we think they have moved it. And Paris, Hitler asks, is Paris Burning? Sorry, Mein Führer, they have moved Paris; we think it is in Los Vegas. Hitler is so angry he says nothing. If you could see Hitler from outer space, you would see a short pillar of black smoke consuming itself. In another universe, a Mossad assassin known as Ari Èchad, is on a mission of one-way time-travel, searching for baby Hitler on the day he is born.

ACTS

I am talking to you Dawn, please accept this adoration

from a fan, you are my favorite symphony—

but some mornings, begging your magnanimous,

blessed be Dawn,

you are the curse of the next and the next.

I confess to the sin of loving my misery,

how your lead-lined blankets weigh.

What happened to the friends I was dancing with,

on the corner of Waller and Delmar in San Francisco,

that became streamside Hat Creek,

friends that I danced with

ignoring that they were long dead.

Thank you for the warm coins of dawn in my hand

for letting my dog speak to me

for the shadow of the forest that lingered

on the ceiling until noon.

l lay it all down now, let the blankets slide

 to the floor, lay down my shoes, my cowboy boots

my trip-hazard sandals, the paintings, the walls,

I lay down the walls and I lay down the ashes of the walls,

I lay myself down with the last stars

that dare to show themselves, to you, O Dawn.

San Quentin 

I could not wear any kind of blue jeans because that is what the prisoners wore. And no red or blue handkerchiefs dangling out of my pocket—gang colors. The guards warned me about the no hostage policy. Walking through a forest of murderers, but I was not afraid, after all I knew the magic words, the incantation that would sooth the most savage hearts. Once upon a time. Once upon a time I said in a low voice. And the growls coming from the behind the twisted trees and thorny briers ceased, the clouds broke open and the moon came out and shed soft light on the path.  

        hand over hand

        he climbs a drainpipe—

        escaping from memory

My Room in the Basement 

It seems I am living in the basement room adjacent to the garage in my parent's house in San Francisco. My brother has been thoughtful in setting up a shower for me in the garage. I step into the garage with a towel wrapped around my waist and there are four young women, teachers, going through a box of my art supplies. Hey, those are mine I say and we get into a pleasent conversation. Apparently there is a one- hundred story building built over my parent's house. The teachers live in an apartment on the 20th floor. They have read my poetry in anthologies and in their literature textbooks and are pleased to find me still alive. We can talk anytime I say, just knock on the garage door. I go back to my room next to the garage thinking what nice young women and hoping to see them again. But every time I go down into the basement room or step into the garage there is some new person there. That's the way it is. You are an old man and a skyscraper has descended over your childhood home were you live in the basement, where you meet many new people but only see each one once.

Author Bio:

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey, Dream Horse Press, 2014, The Chair, BOA 2015, and Porridge, Press 53, 2016. He has received a Pushcart Prize, and been in Best American Poetry. http://www.richardgarcia.info.