Palm Tree Paradise Poem by Laurence Overmire

Whenever I think about Hollywood
I remember those tall majestic
Palm trees
Lining Hollywood Boulevard

The magic of the place is somehow
Embodied in those stately trees
Reaching
Skyward

An alien world
You just won't encounter
Anywhere else
In the United States

You have been transported
To a land where dreams
Just might
Come true

An island oasis of fantasy
Fulfillment where
You can be
Anyone you imagine yourself to be

After all

No one will know
In the glare of the sun
What is real and
What is not

Put on your sunglasses

Feel the warmth of that heavenly orb
Beating upon your face
The breeze tossing its playful fingers
Through your hair

Your hands firmly on the wheel of your
Convertible
Lifestyle
Smooth, yet effervescent

A fine wine of experience
On a free-way
That never ends
Bend after bend after

Glorious bend

Until that ignominious
Morning
When you wake up
With a hangover

And wonder how it is
In the slick spin
Of a lifetime
You are where you are

And seem to have
Forgotten
Where it was
You were going.

~ Laurence Overmire