Blog Every Day April

YA author Maureen Johnson has declared this month to be Blog Every Day April (BEDA - on Twitter search #BEDA). So in addition to it being Poetry Month, it's apparently blogging month.

Any other writing demands you got, folks???

I'm in the last week of my class, trying to churn out pages, and now I'm supposed to blog every day and write a poem every day too? Can you, ya know, spread this shit out a little for me?

Yet lo, see how I have blogged today, April 1? Perhaps I shall be able to do this BEDA thing.

Perhaps not. No promises.

In the spirit of all this, here's a stab at a poem for today.

Running down Hollywood Boulevard at sunset

Plane contrail a white arrow in dusty blue sky
backlit palms
Elvis and Marilyn arm in arm
three musicians, pierced, blue hair, use the crosswalk
carrying a guitar, a trumpet, and a bass.
A woman tends white roses in the Wattles gardens
while rats rustle in drifts of leaves
beneath the avocado trees.

Breath comes hard, I limp
past an open case of beer on the sidewalk
and stop. Inside, bottles beer.
A few feet away a dog owner
has neglected to pick up after an elephant dog.

No one but me
and the old Russian ladies
leaning on each other down the block.

Sweat trickles down my back. A sign
on the telephone pole reads only:
Young Man in need of Living Situation.
All the phone numbers have been torn off.

I feel the beer.
It's cold.
But I run on.