We were young
crowded around those tables
knocking elbows
cockeyed
looking at the ladies
trying to be suave
trying to be Cary Grant
and Jimmy Stewart
with Cagney faces
but we played fire
with words
hitting keys hard
typewriters splintering
that wide future
seductive,
erotic
in the way virgin boys
dreamed about it
while the old men
(Heinlein we chuckled)
took it for granted
that love and rockets
would be equally tame.
Cigarette smoke curls
to the yellowed
ceiling tiles there
at Clifton’s
soft vibrations of
micro-elations
our art budding
poetry embryonic,
short stories sweet
California tonic
for our Depression.
Ray stands and delivers
soliloquy
of wet Venusian
fungus, he kids
the laughs are
quick and ready
our Society brothers
shake their heads
and look out the
window to Los Angeles
sunshine
and imagine that
beyond the blue and
into the black
is tomorrow morning.
