MAR VISTA SHADORMAS

Mar Vista Shadormas


Origin-
aly named Ocean
Park Heights, des-
pues, trite, Barnes.
The post office established
1925.

Dubious
statue-cage, Myrna
Loy, silent
movie act-
ress, graduate Venice High,
mascot, Gondoliers!

Vintage fight-
er jet crashed into home
on Wade Street
North of Stew-
art, west of Sepulveda,
retardant foam spill.

Scattergood
Steam Plant, bare hands fish-
ing in grand
Ballona
Creek, Centinela Improve-
ment Corporation.

Savages
vandalize “Venus”
though headless,
in a cage,
Van Orden gallops through surf
spraycan “L.A.’s Best.”

Union troops
from close Camp Latham
used camels
and not mules
sentinel Catalina
from Mar Vista Hill.


(Los Angeles Public Library Photo Database)


Mar Vista Shadormas


Pepy’s Gal-
ley, Mitsuwa Mall,
soft ball gar-
dens, mansions
down Inglewood and Palms,
shiny commuters.

Zapotec
spoken here, Oaxaq-
ueños rule
this beach hamlet.
Se visten niños dioses,
popular placard.

Beach bum wake
walks Venice, Ocean.
Lounge under
four-o-five,
ten-lane shadow embankment.
Plant flag in sidewalk.

Mar Vista
Gardens, el Super
South of Cul-
ver, grass walk-
way, Ballona Creek Bike Path,
Sawtelle to Del Rey.

Detour through
Horrid 4-way stops
Sixty miles
An hour, through
Studio executive
hills, plots of ranch shelves.

U-S-A
Donuts, Sabor de
Oaxaca
library
Mar Vista Branch used to be
douchebag bookstore front.


(Los Angeles Public Library Photo Database)

Mar Vista Shadormas


Back-door screen,
portal construction.
Workers ham-
mering riv-
ets into pomo vigas,
indivisible.

Laundromats,
retirement pods.
Cadillac
Semper Rome.
Infernal bus, drive-thru crowd:
the cue at Menchis!!!!

New comic-
Bookstore on Old Ball-
ona gas
station turned
norm-core curiosity,
Geek Charcuterie.

Well Baby
Center, Douche Johnson—
signed-copy jail—
Post Office
on Grandview, city’s first planned
community, gated.

The softball
stinky, burnt, trashpits,
when Grandview
stopped at Palms.
The saline air in alleys
making ravens green.

Print shop spores,
in the maw, typewriters,
piñatas
of Sponge Bob
alongside los niños dioses,
child divinities.