Transfer to Mission Beach - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Transfer to Mission Beach

A transfer to Mission Beach. Will she be there?
The transit bus passes all the old scenes
The U.S. Grant Hotel, the Navy pier
The training base with white-capped squids lined up

And on to Mission Beach, where there is no mission
Except the wooden roller-coaster and the bars
Where strangers seek out hope in others’ eyes
And finding nothing in them choogle on

Will she be there?
The long-haired girl with the dime-store guitar

A year before:

Cheap wine and cigarettes, a shabby room
With a Jefferson Airplane poster on the wall
My buddy got lucky, I didn’t, poor me
(He got the clap, I didn’t, oh, lucky me)

But early in the morning I strolled the beach
Feeling quite sorry for myself, and then
I saw a pretty girl sitting alone in the sand
Alone beneath the clouds, embracing her guitar

She was herself, I an accessory
Probably unseen, for she was herself
Working out her own hopes and mysteries
In an exile’s sweater, she was herself

The sea followed her chords, and so did I
From a shy distance in the morning cold
The seals looked at her, and at me, and splashed
Back to their singing sea, and swam away

I hadn’t the courage to speak to her
She probably wanted to be alone
With her aeolian meditations
And maybe she wrote dream-poetry too

Free-verse poetry about beach-crossed lovers
Passing in the dawn as the lights wink off
And the café up along the street opens up
With the comfort of coffee, 25 cents

And a year or so later:

The bus lets me off at the same old corner
With the mom-and-pop grocery shop below
And the empty windows in the room above
Which I rented and abandoned a year ago

And behind it the morning sand, and the sea
Sighing as it always does, for the lovers
Who never were, and who never will be
And there were only the same seals and clouds

It’s all negative capability

A transfer to Mission Beach
I returned to Mission Beach
But it wasn’t there