Bakersfield Musings

BAKERSFIELD: THIS CITY

Before sun's up, standing on the porch with coffee and
silence I want to last.
The carrier's come and gone. The newspaper lies on the
lawn.

This is the interlude between late night stragglers
and neighbors off to work.
This is the time of clarity; it comes to me like
water.
Was there a time when day broke like an orchestra's
first note,
Like a brush stroke on blank canvas?

This beleaguered city sleeps for brief moments only,
ragged as an insomniac
Holding on to wispy dreams of riches and good times.
Phlegmatic and gray,
She needs rest.

Sleep Bakersfield, ringed by mountains -
Sleep Bakersfield, let the Kern run her way -
Sleep Bakersfield, leave the soil turn dark -
Sleep Bakersfield, sigh now deep,
Tired city, sleep now sleep.

Alexa Mergen

2004

*********************************************

Book World

(on the building of the B.C. library)

A solid looming whiteness rises

In defiance of the weary heat.

A glass portal,

And a welcome whispered

From the marble coolness

Surrounding the silent guardians.

Away from the talkative blue-greens,

Past clickety-clacking conversation

And the pattering prate of the steps.

Away from the outspoken strides

Of the sprawling and the listless.

Flanked by friendly volumes

Walk through the forest of the friendly shelves.

The carpet intones softly

To more humble steps,

As muted greys absorb the sounds.

Safe in blessed solitude

With fleeting glances the only invasion:

A muted cough,

A shifting chair,

As pages whisper softly to each other

Within the sanctuary of peace.

Jennifer Powers

August 23, 1996

*************************************************

PARKING LOT—AFTER POETRY AT RUSSO’S

Driving home,

Darkness

Cools

A day of relentless

Heat.

I roll

The car window

Down,

Feel the comfort

Of a summer evening

Breeze

Brush

Across my cheek.

Relief.

Even the truest

Love,

It tenderly agrees,

Can end,

And never easily.

Marian Orrell

*********************************************

Restless

You notice a different restlessness here

not like the overcast shiftiness

of merging clouds and stale gulf air

not at all like the chafing dusty gusts

that prowl the Texas panhandle

This partial desert must have crawled

out of a bright robin’s egg and settled

back under the smooth blue delicate dome

with its jagged crack ‘round the bottom edge

some say “mountains”

some say “home”

But this desert bird

With its robin head

With its phoenix tail

With its restless wings

Blinks a hawk eye to the right

a mockingbird to the left

still under the remnant shell it cannot heft

pondering pondering always pondering

the nature of its

unfinished hatching

Jana Moore

November 2005

*************************************

B-TOWN

From downtown homeless have since been evacuated,

The place now resembles a mini ghost town.

Back alley weariness in broad daylight,

Makes you look over your shoulder,

Look; but for what?

Midget liberty girl sporting a fierce glance,

Stands guard in some “allright” – parking place,

Idle and inutile, seemingly busy doing nothing.

No need to be so fearful girl,

Who really cares about this town?

Traffic trickles down slow at noontime.

Left over people creep on, left behind critters,

Once life left this planet to wander without a sitter.

These are pretending humans just wandering away,

Or are they?

Hopeful eyelid longs to spot the friendly hand he awaits,

Amidst the leery and shady light smothering his town.

Unanswered bell rang on an absent ear,

Can one contact any soul to get an answer around here?

Silence may be the answer.

Uptown, midtown, downtown, cross-town,

Whichever way you shake it.

Uptown, midtown, downtown, cross-town,

Whichever way you make it.

B-town always gets you crashing face down.

Nduku Makpaulu

Tehachapi, 2004