huitzil

Hey, I've been trying to make a landscape of California, this is one of the things I've come up with. It's mostly a loose association of words, I'd like to know if it works together. Thanks.

California 1

Hockney colors
Beige sand white
Ocean blue versus sky
With a side of sheer imminent cliff death
And rocky Pacific doom
A laughing juxtaposition.
The cycle of violence shore/surf disturbance
One caught, pinned to the salty blue letch,
A perfect gentleman,
He breathes down sandstone neck
Whispering
Dark and immense he will tear from shore to shore
And the land-locked lover can only kiss back.
It's a shaky relationship with a history of
Black and blue Richter scales
And unkempt highway memorials.

The billboards, trendy retro ‘50s,
(circa 2006)
And hand slapping surfers with
Broad goofy smiles and
Broad goofy shoulders
And impossibly huge homes
Sprawled like fat sunbathers on the hillsides
Begs the question
Who really lives there?
Or are they just props
Like everything else.
We play pretend real
The streets wink and grin
The big secret
We’re all in on
The waves laugh and howl,
Whisper and whimper,
Shhh.

Cran

Perhaps, huitzil, but not for me ...

three words, which might have been typos,
or might have been deliberate, are a bit too obscure
for a concept like California ...

...

1. Hockney was a mostly autobiographical British artist of the 60's ...
but without some example of his work, I have no idea what he did with colour to give me a reference here ...
on the other hand, you might have meant hackneyed ...
or, being an American theme, hokey ...

2. eminent ... I see nothing distinguished about sheer cliff death ...
perhaps you meant eminent as high, overriding (as in eminent domain) ...
or perhaps you meant imminent, as in any moment now, looming ...

3. letch ... the only salty blue letches I can think of are ungentlemanly sailors on shore leave ...
but "pinned to a rude sailor" doesn't seem to fit here ...

So, before I am halfway through, I have three instances where I don't know what you mean ...
now, perhaps that is poetry, I don't know* ...


*what I don't know could fill libraries ...

__________________
"I don't know ... I'm making it up as I go ..." - Dr I Jones

Nature abhors perfection - cats abhor a vacuum!

huitzil

This poem had meaning for me, I didn't consider it might not for others. If anyone is interested I hope this helps.

1. Hockney- yes I meant the artist, the bright almost extremely primary-ish colors that he used describes the beach ("beige sand white/ocean blue versus sky").

2. eminent- sorry in this case I did mean imminent.

3.Letch- This word is what I meant to use. The first stanza personifies the coastline. The ocean is the paradoxically gentlemanly/ungentlemanly "letch breathing down sandstone neck" (the ocean crashing up against the shore). I was hoping this would describe the ocean as both potentially destructive, while at the same time beautiful.

Another clarification- California 1 is Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway which is the subject of the poem.

Baron

I'm surprised that someone would not pick up on the Hockney reference, particularly as Hockney's better known paintings all use the LA glam as a subject.

I thought this was a nice verbal journey but, like many journeys, the trip was better than the end. I found the "whisper and whimper, Shhh" close let it down.

The real secret that LA hides from the world is that there are real, ordinary people living there.

__________________

cygnet

it did not do it for me
And hand slapping surfers with
Broad goofy smiles and
Broad goofy shoulders

does not fit my image of california, this needs major work, and maybe starting from the start from a more specific part or aspect of california

__________________
'What I see is real:
four weightless poplars
planted in vertigo'

Octavio Paz

huitzil

Thanks for your comments, my time in California is running out and I felt the need to wax poetic about my home-state. I guess this poem is a little to personal to be enjoyable for anyone else.

Baron

Comments aren't made to put you or the poem down but to possibly help you to rethink it and improve it.

__________________

huitzil

and i thanked you for them, sincerely.