Ode to Downtown Los Angeles

Bukowski sprawled in your duck pond park, drunk on drink and prose and watery duck pond air, John Fante, too & me, as well.

The pond has since become a spout a launching pad; Pershing Missile Square.
It wasn’t until many years later that I overheard a man at the bus stop say,” that used to be the most dangerous plot in Los Angeles”

The pond had since huddled over, coddling docile homeless and middle-management Armenian types.

Oh, Los Angeles, your Temple is a street & your Spring has long sprung ever-changing, a metamorphic municipality bodega to parking lot warehouse to loft. Even your wholesale fashion for the poor vacates for I.T. guys and painters and middle-management Armenian types, & me as well. Gentrification they say but phantom Bukowski & Fante’s apparition know there is something far more sinister at hand & me as well.

A black lady pulls over and flags me down. She has real human hair and finger nails with the length & curvature of the journey itself, “Can you tell me where I will find the courthouse?” “Four more blocks & you’ll see it on your left." I have no idea if this is true.