Passage to the Central Coast

A continuation of my poem An American Desert Travelog

PASSAGE TO THE CENTRAL COAST

I.
From Bakersfield across the wide
San Joaquin Valley we r0de towards
the Pacific coast on California 46
over a seemingly endless, dry expanse---
watered from below and constantly
changing from orchards to vineyards
to bean fields and back again to
orchards like the old time rolling
dioramas of yester-years.

II.
Passed the James Dean Memorial,
his iconic ghost still lingering decades
later at this lonely flower and trinket
strewn site along the road where he
died in an out of control sports car---
another martyr to the thrill of speed
and whatever else was ginning up
his soul at the time. I unconsciously
slowed down---not to gaze at this
grizzly shrine to a celebrity’s demise,
but perhaps I suddenly realized death
can come unbidden right in the middle
of foolishly living the one life we have.

III.
Up and over the Coastal Range
and down to California 1 running
like a faded black ribbon fastened
to the western edge of the nation---
the vaunted American highway
of west coast myth and mystique,
where dreamers ride up and down
looking for the experience
that will finally set them free.
Pulled into Cambria where the
Pacific beckoned us to stay awhile
and listen to its blue and white
kisses laid upon a rocky shore.

Author's Note

In these poems I am trying to affect the 50's "bop prosidy" of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Ferlingetti . . . lots of colorful and crazy adjectives and adverbs and long "breaths," the last "barbaric yawp" (Whitman) before postmodernism eschewed modifiers.

Reviews

[Eilis]

I recently watched East of Eden with James Dean, and then read the book. So, Steinbeck’s vision was dancing in my head as I read this. Your vineyards and orchards and bean fields felt especially atmospheric. I thought James Dean played the character of Cal very well, but otherwise the movie paled in comparison to the book.

As a girl, I knew everything there was to know about James Dean. The details aren’t important to me now, but I still find him a fascinating character. I suppose he’s like the male Marilyn Monroe. Taken early and everyone left to imagine what might have been. That part of your poem, with the shrine to him, really captured the heart of that for me. It’s interesting that the character of him is like part of the landscape. It’s a matter of scale in the story.

I haven’t read a lot of the beat poets, I should, it’s a hole in my poetry education, but from what I have read, I do get that rhythm and bombastic feeling here that I associate with that style.

Your details offer a sense of things, spirit, shall I say, and the descriptions never feel overdone. To my mind the lines here are firmly outside the neurotic postmodern feel that we’ve grown used to seeing. But you always have a nice easy narrative style that invites the reader in.

Anyway, I feel like I’m rambling a lot. I’ll wind things up by saying I really enjoyed this next installment ‘from the road’ and look forward to reading more. Great details for the journey.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

the myth and mystique...it remains....love Ginsberg and Ferliingetti...
and i love modifiers...poetry sometimes in recent years appears to be too clipped..
i always liked long hair...not buzz cuts.
and amazing how those like James Dean with such short lives seem to live on longer in death than those who lived to their nineties...
j.