Echo Park smile as summers swarm
over stucco- brown apartments
beaded like sweat.Lonely travelers
step out of torn screen doors
of the Paradise Motel and ride.
Carnival lights on a mud lot
beckon the street crawlers. The
amusements reach up to the sky
with colors splashing across the
night's palette in a silent brush.
Winitos crowd around the entrances
of the 24-hour Pioneer
Market, their crusted hands open
for change. Darla, la fea, accepts
change for back-of-the-alley favors
Echo Park's playground swells with children
who scramble around the swings,
and they swing and swing
while mothers on chipped benches
relate the nights and indecisions.
I've screamed here,made love here.
I've raced through the shadow of the trees,
While locos stalked the damp.
I've cried and laughed here - I once
held my daughter here who fell from the
monkey bars when I wasn't looking.
The lush of Echo Park calls to me.
Waits for me. Tells me lies.
And I believe them. Oh, take me back,
Echo Park, Merciless and naughty,
back to the dawn of guitar strings
and strained voices out of yawning windows.
Luis J. Rodriguez
over stucco- brown apartments
beaded like sweat.Lonely travelers
step out of torn screen doors
of the Paradise Motel and ride.
Carnival lights on a mud lot
beckon the street crawlers. The
amusements reach up to the sky
with colors splashing across the
night's palette in a silent brush.
Winitos crowd around the entrances
of the 24-hour Pioneer
Market, their crusted hands open
for change. Darla, la fea, accepts
change for back-of-the-alley favors
Echo Park's playground swells with children
who scramble around the swings,
and they swing and swing
while mothers on chipped benches
relate the nights and indecisions.
I've screamed here,made love here.
I've raced through the shadow of the trees,
While locos stalked the damp.
I've cried and laughed here - I once
held my daughter here who fell from the
monkey bars when I wasn't looking.
The lush of Echo Park calls to me.
Waits for me. Tells me lies.
And I believe them. Oh, take me back,
Echo Park, Merciless and naughty,
back to the dawn of guitar strings
and strained voices out of yawning windows.
Luis J. Rodriguez
This was a really cool poem Art. I love the picture you put up, that was really nice. It reminds me of the house my uncle used to stay at when he was studying to become a priest. It was right across from a place that looked like this.
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