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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

At the age of sixteen, I first traveled

To the city of the angels, with some friends.

Like me, they were skaters and seeking the thrill

We found on curved concrete and ocean waves.

They were there to get high and celebrate

The end of high school, and I was there

To get serious and compete for a pool-riding prize

At Lakewood Skatepark, towards the end of its life.

My friend Todd, over beer the night before

The event suggested I should use

My martial arts training to calm my nerves

And find my inner California flow

To carry me through the contest’s flow

Without missing a trick, and win the prize:

Bragging rights and a first-place trophy that traveled

Back to Washington with me before

Skateboarding almost died, when even the thrill

Of Tony Alva faded out so that he had to use

The coins under his floormats and bits of food there

To survive the early ’90s and celebrate

Skating’s rebirth in X-Game waves —

But not until many a skatepark owner’s nerves

Had been sorely tested and skating life

Had turned to backyard ramps with friends.

When next I recall visiting L.A., it was friends

Living in Pasadena that caused my flow

To channel south in search of an elusive prize:

The nuns of Mount St. Mary’s chanting there

The O Antiphons in the silken vocal waves

I’d read about in Cloister Walk and the thrill

Of drawing close to mysteries that used

To hide in the Hollywood Hills before

The swirling hurricanes of fire traveled

Through like Hell’s angels meaning to celebrate

The destruction of angelic life,

Doing damage to contemplative nerves.

I was thirty-two years old and my nerves

Had grown somewhat taut from their

Entanglement with heartstrings and from standing before

What felt like a strange and useless life.

Thus I arrived and stepped into the L.A. flow

And felt the weather a cause to celebrate,

With the light that flowed in particles and waves

Landing on my eyes like a paradise surprise

I didn’t quite know how to use

But found I could enjoy with my friends

Sitting out on their patio as the ebb and flow

Of the Pacific Ocean induced a gentle thrill

To be alive within the California thrill

And the California calming of my nerves.

In years that followed, I found myself flow

Through and around L.A. as I traveled

By rail, by car, by plane, with family and friends,

Still in search of some kind of missing prize,

The Coast Starlight taking me from rainy life

Up north, through Oregon and down to the golden waves

Of Santa Monica to momentarily celebrate

The ocean before lying down then and there

Under the sun and over the moon before

The sunset pointed me to thoughts I could use

To create a map of the future and recuse

Myself from the self-recriminations of my life

And its many doubts lingering there

Until I could vicariously celebrate

The charms of the happiest place on earth before

The childhood of my children escaped the flow

Of Caribbean pirates and Indiana Jones’s nerves

Jolting with the twists and turns of friends

Enjoying the rides together and the thrill

Of Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, the prize

Of parenthood with many vacations traveled

Where memory paves the radio waves

Of the fondest times and the simulated waves

Of rollercoaster rides reliving the endless thrill

Of the yin and yang of life here and there

And the repeated wish to win the prize

And somehow grasp the good life

Others seem to have effortlessly traveled,

The illusions created by Facebook friends

And the times when it all gets on one’s nerves

And you can’t keep drinking from the firehose flow

And you’ve used up every trick you could use

To pretend to laugh and sing and celebrate

The time before the time before.

All of that happened long before

The dawning of a strange convergence of friends

Celebrating their wedding day and the use

Of UCLA’s facilities in a scene that unnerves

My sense of synchronicity’s there is no there

Like some shadowed nut Jung might prise

From a California shell and the latent thrill

Of surrendering to unusual crisscrossing waves

When you’ve given in and traveled

To begin a reckless rearrangement of life,

Allowing love’s unfettered flow

And your decision to succumb to celebrate

A new life with angels seeming to celebrate

The dangerous sparks and sudden overuse

Of too many you’ve got a lot of nerves

And violations of poetic license before

Simply embracing the high-intensity flow

And gently caressing unexpected waves

Leading us on a downhill walk to celebrate

Mass at St. Monica’s as if we traveled

From the far corners just to go there

After experiencing thrill after thrill

And a picnic near the pier among angelic friends

Witnessing the beginning of a luminous new life.

Fast forward to the navigation of this life.

If I am a pebble, my daughters are the waves

That ripple out from the splash I celebrate

Life with, generally speaking, and the mysterious reuse

Of my blood and DNA that has strangely traveled

The Washington and Oregon coastlines before,

Metaphorically speaking, entering the flow

Of California’s highly energized nerves

And the city of Los Angeles the prize

To be shared with them and their friends,

To observe the gigantic and majestic thrill

Of the Hollywood sign and the hills seen from there.

Then there was the cherished trip we took there

With my girls and my parents a couple of years before

My father took his angelic leave of this life.

We stayed in Huntington Beach and followed the flow

To the surfing school where we caught some waves

And watched my father capture the video to celebrate.

Another time in Redondo, having traveled

From pale-skin winter land, the thrill

Of the sun turned into the sunburn of fiends

With licking tongues turning delight into the abuse

Of skin sizzled red down to the very nerves —

Not the hoped-for spring-break suntan prize.

And now Los Angeles is burning its own prize

Like a twenty-dollar bill it can no longer use,

Holding it up like a mad poet to his friends

In a gesture of despair that masks a thrill

Of ferocious fire weather and raw nerves

That bring Lynchean nightmares to vivid life

And death across Pacific Palisades before

The devilish gale-force Santa Anna flow

Begins to subside leaving nothing there

But ashes on sea foam and breaking waves

And no place to gather to celebrate

The end of the fire on the streets that it traveled.

My memories traveled back to L.A. with my friends.

I remember the thrill of Lakewood, the smell of the waves.

I celebrate my many memories of being there.

Let the angels of now bless the prize of this life

Because nothing will be like it was before and we could use

A miracle and nerves like raindrops starting to flow.

Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

A brief word from the poet about a new perk for paid subscribers.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

Words and music by Jonathan Potter, all rights reserved — Merry Christmas!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe