Malibu Exile
by Odin Roark

Imagine
I will.

Take advantage
I must.

Lest upon this sand,
this oasis of supposed quenching,
I might permanently loose the footprints
back to the one I once was
finding only the isolationist I am today.

Sadly, memories become dreams that fade.

Still...

Amongst the dreams void of such memories,
might there have been a modest cabin
somewhere in the canyon to the ocean,
where my someone, the anyone who would have had me,
shared a challenging continuation with this doleful man
so long searching for answers?

Might we have been happy together?

Sometimes hungry.
Sometimes pocketing vegetables
from a neighbor's garden,
or scavenging half-smoked cigarette butts by flashlight.

Would we have been poor of material comfort,
but perhaps rich of heart?

Might we have been always just a morning's run
to the beach over California-baked mountains?
And like the leaning tall grass of dunes to the ocean,
arched into the California surf,
embracing our own humble survival together?

And maybe…
Just maybe,
returning to the cottage,
our mongrel dog ‘'Patchwork"
and scrawny cat "Princess"
would greet us with their dependence,
urging us to respond,
rewarding their love of us
with love they know so well…
food

Remember our first joint together?
You read poems,
Princess got high,
Patchwork dug a hole to China.
We found certain...what?

Such simple animal-wants satisfied.
Such complex human needs still questioning.

Now with so many years behind us,
I live at ocean’s edge,
all of nature’s aromas drifting from fog to drowsy/thick.

Every hour.

Every day.

Here on my poisonous beach of true aloneness,
time is passing rapidly.

But…

Enough of that.
Time for a walk.
Joints (the other kind)
don't want to work so well anymore.

Did I tell you I travel often
from my Manhattan penthouse
to this Malibu beach house.
I sit with you,
my gray-haired friend that never was,
now the weathered woman of my dreams.

We watch a full moon’s brilliance
sparkle ocean breakers folding
the edges of our dark sanctuary
where I live with addiction's power,
deal with success’s suffocation,
and continue questioning my choices.

Such is the plight of a rich man’s exile.

Malibu.