AMERICA IN YOUR DREAMS
AMERICA IN YOUR DREAMS
Photo and poem by Oswald James
everyone’s an actor
every one a wild card
born with a solid grasp of the craft
james dean and denny hopper
polishing their motorcycle boots
out on the foggy 1
from pt. arena to julia pfeifer burns
chief strangehorse and cochise
chewing cactus through
the navajo wastelands
that stretch beyond thought
watching the wild mustangs
before the misfits
bodega bay to pt. doom
route 666 and the natural bridges
lonesome traffic jams
hobo parades
before the rails
before the wild succulent freeways
before the smoggy haze
made it all look better
get some fucking film
cancel your reservations
and head back to the beach
through the imaginary canyon
and the death valley of your mind
to shoot the star spangled breeze
An associative “trip”: a pasticcio of iconic American movie and geo-historical references ending up on the west coast, most suggestively, L.A., with the connectiveness of a dream skirting a nightmare–of a dying culture.