Love Letter to Los Angeles

See our Store to order Jason’s book: “The Broken & the Damned”


The first day I saw you Los Angeles
we sat outside, traded coy glances
you dumped sugar in your coffee
and asked why I ordered the Denver omelet
when the world is at my finger tips.
“I’m not good with change”, I said.

The Melrose pavement was shit hot
as a lost boy beat his brains with a pay phone receiver-
Jesus called collect again,
always drama with that guy
he has great abs though.
The art gallery in the tranny’s backyard
was post-modern grudge fuck,
the dead beetles encased in amber
the cat skeletons for sale
the syringes of Burroughs’s youth
all in cases under light
and I wanted to buy you that ring
made from brown recluse bones
but I was broke.

The cars on Sunset
ceased to exist
it was all lips and cigarettes by then
the two eyes veiled in plastic hearts
with more star power
than the walk of fame
we got used to talking without words
the whiskey brought courage
and I finally kissed the smog
from your lips.

Hungover in the sand
I watch sea gulls run on knobby knees
the ocean eats itself
flesh surrounds me
and I feel I’ve been here before.

I pull a stray white feather from your back
maybe from a pillow
or a pigeon
nothing can sway my opinion-

I still believe
this is the city of angels.

Jason Hardung’s work has been published widely through the American underground. His work has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Word Riot, Zygote In My Coffee, Underground Voices, decomP, Thrasher, Lummox Journal, Heroin Love Songs, Polarity, Up The Staircase, St. Vitus Press to name a few. He has a chapbook, Breaking The Hearts of Robots on Covert Press, and a full length book, The Broken and The Damned on Epic Rites. He has been nominated for a Puschcart. He is co-editor of the Front Range Review and Matter Journal and lives in FT. Collins, Colorado with a cat and a bird whose feet fell off.