Pioneer parking lot
at the ocean's edge
with nowhere left to go.
Waiting for the big one.
Innocents wearing flowers in their hair
watch Mickey and Goofy
through the fog of burning herbs
to wake
in a tent-city underpass.
Time to leave.
Decades dismantled.
Traces left to fade
in unforgiving sun --
fragments at freight forwarding.
Driving North on 99,
broken white lines blur
to vanish in the rearview
like the glory days
of Storyland Motel.
Beyond the valley’s haze,
palm trees sway
under a tangerine twilight.
Ghost-riders in the golden bus
scramble to hop off
as the night man
receives an error message.
John Walter Taylor
© All rights reserved
27 September 2026
