Out Here on the Perimeter

(a quatern)
In shade of rubber burned from L.A. streets,
The chants arise of seven-mi'le snakes,
Of native graves and blood, Mojave’s heat
At Lizard King’s arrive, as Whiskey shakes.

A Venice road that bleats up Valley skirts,
In shade of rubber burned from L.A. streets,
That women/girls arouse, though eyes avert
To find their maps on thrusts of roadhouse sheets.

In little drinks that taste of winds’ conceits,
In backdoor rhymes that call the wounded heart,
In shade of rubber burned from L.A. streets,
Elab’rate plans that end before they start.

So, raise your shattered glass to whiskey bars,
To Weill and Brecht, and every drunk’s defeat,
To cities raised in sun of film and stars,
In shade of rubber burned from L.A. streets.