LIVES ON FIRE

LA is a forest of lives

now feeding carnivorous flames,

flames that cremate neighborhoods, and grow.

It’s a painful choice—stay, spray, and pray?

Or run for your life–

taking only kids, pets and meds?

What about looters? Water damage?

Grandpa’s first editions?

How can we live without heaped-up trivia

that tells us who we are?

Then add critics.

You’re living in a desert, dummy.

Now you want bail-out?

Trump says the fire is California’s fault, anyway.

As LA incinerates,

the face of homelessness changes.

It’s no longer the curse of drugs and crazies.

With homes, jobs, and banks in ashes,

the homeless are now doctors, teachers, plumbers,

people who lived charmed lives—

lives eaten up by equal-opportunity flames,

flames that treat everyone alike;

flames that leave everyone alike

bereft, betrayed, and defeated.

Palisades, Eaton and Hurst are war zones:

drought and dense construction

in no-holds-barred battle with

consequences.

Infernos always win.