John Lithgow: Painter James Ellroy - FORTH Magazine

Issue 05 • September-October 2009 POETRy
www.ForthMagazine.com 7
poetry by
dillon
mullenix
echo PArK
Echo Park was where I grew up
And where Tom Waits sat drooling bourbon drunk
And cocaine heavy in the 70s
And where in the 90s chinks stood atop grocery markets with AK- 7s
And blacks ran down streets in a glorious show of the power of mayhem
And it was like watching hundreds of fingers coming together as a fist
Pulling men from trucks
Echo Park is where my dad ended up after drifting
And getting stone cold drunk on Sunset and Alvarado
And Echo Park is where I saw my first dead body
On Riverside
And witnessed my own friend’s atonic stare burn holes in bodies
with steel and lead
And in that hole there are the only far flung green hills
that stand above Los Angeles’ developed basins
Echo Park is where during fits with poverty my mom
and I ran food packages to Skid Row
And ventured out to Gorky’s downtown
And Echo Park was where dad bought Fosters beer before camping trips
on which he always found girls
And lost us on granite hilltops for pussy
And tits I myself lusted after
And in Echo Park tired old men begged for whiskey
And coins for “yen”
And doggie bags
Echo Park is what I left
Before I found college
Echo Park is what I remember
On lonely nights when things don’t seem solid, anymore
Echo Park is my childhood
Where ball games and manic fiends were the norm
(above) “The Fall.” ”x 8”. Oil on canvas.
(below) “The Bells.” ”x ”. Monotype.
by Mitchell Friedman | Santa Monica