Carlos

One day, soon after his move to Los Angeles, a few friends forced him to come out and play on a day when he was in a terrible gloom. They spent the day at the Third Street Promenade, and from that day he wrote a cycle of poems about the experience, entitled "Encounters on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica on a Warm July Evening Strolling with Loving Friends". This poem is about a group of South American musicians who were performing on the street...

Carlos

the pipes play with the band of street musicians
telling wordless tales of the Andean Mountains.
Peruvian melodies so sweet and seductive.
and the man with the tambourine dances into the crowd
and takes the hand of the young woman with
the gardenia dress to dance with him. She laughs
in a moment of embarrassment, then is lost to the
rhythm of smoky jungle nights at the edge of the sky,
flying and lying and trying her best to move
to a music she has never heard, only lived.
and Carlos smiles with crooked teeth and eyes
that flash like jaguars in the night.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.