Poem of the Week: 8.17.23

"If L.A. is that recombinant hybrid" by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira

IF L.A. IS THAT RECOMBINANT HYBRID

by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira

after Sesshu Foster

Incessantly, mornings remember 
saturated heartbreak
opportunistic remorse 
       before the freeways merged

At the bus stop on Don Lorenzo & La Brea
some twenty-some and old folk
       worry about spent time
if only the green in the leaves, dry as they are
if only sunlight’s gentle press
if each conjoining muscle and tendon
       part a whole, since all will come and go,
then this weekday would feel less wasteful

Waiting for an Uber in Hyde Park
screeching down the street
decision in an afternoon fog 
or haze or hush or something more
the kids play fight, blocking cars
like those videos

Slauson, the Metro A-line, leaves like hair 
a cat’s fur bristling in the wind
       her white fangs
lace panties, crumbs in the carpet
words on a lost lipstick label 

Downtown daily apocalypse & apps 
texts sent to bosses and lovers and foes
dirt under painted nails
sweat on brows
gold watches
blades next to the playground
trash in the gutter
work woman crying in her car hands over eyes
jagged tag over park rules

Adams, agape as if snoring 
       self-induced dreams
a dingy Camry, a diamond cloudscape
       shooting up in front of an LA Fitness

Walking home, Florence, Florencia
Zoning, zoned, Raza, razed
never having questioned instability 
the glass that separates the inside

Sharpie scrawl on plaster fencing: 
       here me

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Read by the poet:

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I’m saying goodbye to L.A.

For now. Packing and moving and driving and waiting have made me reminiscent for the city I’ve lived in for some years. I’ve bounced around a lot—five address have been “home” across five years—and seen a lot as a result.

Today I move back to my hometown for a few weeks before making the next move to grad school. Though I’m about to spend the next three years Officially and Professionally writing to get another Degree, I haven’t been writing too much lately. I’m trying to let it come naturally, or not at all. But I have children to feed—lol not really, just being dramatic about this weekly poetry newsletter that you might be reading.

“If L.A. is that recombinant hybrid” is a poem of reflections on / refractions in Los Angeles. This is one of those Frankenstein poems, where each line was written a while ago or used in a different context but now comes together as one poem. I dug through my phone’s Notes app, reading my “notebook” of random writings that I’ve kept throughout my time here, looking for words that spoke to how I’m feeling about L.A. on my way out. Once I had copy/pasted poetic phrases that still spoke to me, I edited the body and filled in the blanks. I think the majority of the lines in this poem are from 2019 and 2020, when I was new to a city I thought I knew.

The title comes from Sesshu Foster’s introduction to one of my favorite books, Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita. Worth the read, regardless of knowing the book.

Before I go,

I’ve got one last thing to say. In spelunking through my notebook, I also came across a sort-of diary entry from early 2020, right before the pandemic. I’ll let you read it (even though it is unedited and very cheesy), because it feels like it fits here.

I think writing is often a response to the question "how did I get here?" How have I ended up in this moment, in this time and space, surrounded by these people, feeling the way that I do. When I was a teenager, 14 or 15, I heard that blinking rapidly in succession—like the shutter of one of those professional cameras—was the best way to take a picture with your mind. I've taken many mind-pictures so far: the court of the final volleyball game of the season, huddled around my coach as he held out his fist for victory; my best friend uncharacteristically crying in my living room, silent streams on his far-off face; sunlight streaking through the blinds the morning after my first L.A. hook-up. Mind-pictures have eventually lost their novelty as I encountered regret of moments I wish I had savored, but this impulse to record and to hold remains. As it remains in most of us. Blogs and articles; movies and shows; texts and songs; poems and daydreams. If only we could make sense of "how" and "here," if only we could leave a record of all that we have known until this point. Perhaps the question is moot, though. "How" and "here" can both be answered objectively, a series of cause-and-effect points. I had careful parents. I listened in school. I followed directions. I did what I was told. "Here" is a classroom that I somewhat shaped, with students that I support, on a Friday afternoon in January, where I type a reflection as to avoid doing work. I know how I got here, but this is my proof.

Movingly, Ricky