"Strange Beaches"

"Strange Beaches"

a spacey humdinger of a poem by jake kilroy.

The strange beaches of Los Angeles dreams,

curved with troubled water,

polluted with the seven deadly sins - 

it's all a beautiful wasteland,

beyond the hills,

past the skyline,

with a moon lit up like a paper lantern.

Here, we rekindle old flames

with nothing more than obituary clippings,
smooth stones we kept from foreign lands,

and a desire to lose our bathing suits in the ocean.

As friends, we dig pistol bullets into our ears like plugs

and then have a pillow fight after several drinks,

praying we don't actually hit the sides of our heads.

As lovers, we have midnight picnics
and lick the salt water from our wounds

to spit it out into our hands for a romantic suicide pact,

because we can never forget what it feels like to die.

As heroes, we wait for the natives and the locals,

and then we wait for the transplants and explorers,

and then we get out the guitars and lull the crowd to sleep.

We only drink to use the beer bottles as postcards.

We only smoke to snap our heads into balloons.

We only love because it's all our hearts can do with blood anymore.

Strange beaches -

syrupy sandcastles, blanket blue water, campfire nostalgia;

all for the grieving, all for the laughter, all forever.

"Olli-olli-oxen-free," cry the arrivals every time.

There is never a sunset, nor a sunrise, it is always night.

And that's how we want it -

blacked out

surreal

with teeth grinning like stars in a constellation

in the belly of the world

as a love affair

without need for time

without need for power

without need for hope

with everlasting endurance

to continue on

as a weight in the airy space of eternity

as a placeholder for another human being

as an adventure of the righteous soul

waiting

learning

conquering

building

expanding

glowing

glowing

glowing

just an immaculate truth

that's filled to the brim with gorgeous nonsense.