More of my writing - I've been a little bit inspired lately.

Beach Visit - (by me!)

Dirty ocean water
licked quietly at the shore
soaking the salty residue
well into my pores
I inhaled the stale fishy smell
deep into my nose
meeting the sandy Venice beach strip
that eagerly greeted my wiggly toes.

With my hands grasped firmly
between my father’s huge ashen fingers
and my mother’s clunky rings,
we strolled together
down the paper littered pathway
amidst a carnival of things.

No higher was my sight
than several feet above the sand,
my child-sized view gazed in place
observing with curious admiration
the adult knees and paper popcorn sacks
that greeted me soundly in the face.

Sights and sounds cluttered the air
and teased my five immature senses
I stared wide-eyed and swivel-headed
Dizzy with anticipation
At the defunct street performers
Who juggled with glass and cast-off trash
Street vendors, freaks of nature
And those partially clothed strangers,
with puckered souring sweaty flesh
bound by tourist I heart blank t-shirts
And fake leather fanny packs, en masse
Sweating from the glaring rays
This beach boardwalk had seen better days.

Colorful graffiti animals danced across
huge stucco tiled Spanish walls
and cracked clay arches.
Broken neon bulbs hung low with dread
yellowed beachfront apartments
winked their weary curtained eyes
with flower pots and laundry lines
trailing from window to window
like intricate cotton hemp woven spider webs.

Block long storefronts flashed
their magical market wares
as gypsy merchants call out
flaunting their goods in an attempt
to trap the tourists and snare
a traveler’s check that was far from its lair.

Somewhere, among there on the ground,
littered with receipts and cans,
people and sand, scraps
garbage from a once well thought-out plan
a beggar’s delight of glittering translucent bottles
shiny kite remnants, strings and things that blow
crinkled foil balls from hot dogs long ago
sat an open violin case
sparsely sprinkled with dull pennies
maybe a rare silver coin
even rarer to spot, a green paper gem.

An extra-ordinary beach prophet
strummed an inaudible tune
on a rusted, two-stringed guitar
in the shape of a hula girl –
The most exotic Hawaiian goddess
I had ever seen
with a full coconut cup bra
she gazed at the man with admiring eyes
swaying her hips in a grass lei jade green
and appeared in further detail
to look more like a dulled tattoo,
peeled from an unknowing sailor’s back,
her pride as a kept woman showed through.

The both of them, together
appeared to be a couple of misfits
made for each other, quite clear
in their distant dream world,
where no stranger was let in,
played the sweetest melody
no one would ever hear.