JEFF HEWITT
Jeff Hewitt is a former television producer based in Los Angeles, California (USA).
Originally from Oswego, New York, he attended Goldsmiths University of London and
has a BA in Photography. He left the television world last year to pursue writing full time,
and is currently finishing his first sci-fi novel as he skips between LA, NY, and London.
Last Inspection
I saw the end of the world
in the west Texas desert
a straight line
of gravel and sand
beyond which there was nothing
but pale blue
I couldn't take my eyes off it
passing the same white truck
every half mile
sure you could drive right over the edge
straight into oblivion
straining to look over a stalled train
stacked with rows of green tanks
all facing East
burnt trees
and sun bleached bones
as traffic cones crowded the lanes
rightmost first
until the white trucks and I
had been kettled against a double yellow line
speed limit decreasing
programmable signs flashing
INSPECTION STATION
and my twelve-year-old silver box
rolled to standstill
arresting
in front of a Border Patrol agent
with a flak jacket
and a hand resting on his holster
flies swarming
to eat their friends
that had exploded on my windshield
he asked me for identification
and if I was a US citizen
handing and answering
"Yes sir, I am indeed"
as he looked
into the back of my car
seats folded down
packed to the brim for the apocalypse
that I can see coming all around me
"Anybody else on board?"
squinting
shaking my head
terse
"Nope"
unsure myself
at that very moment
before he waved me on
down the highway
contraband
racing along the edge of the end.
City Grass
Wheatgrass is sprouting
on the side of the road
"life
in the unlikeliest of places"
David Attenborough
narrates in my head
beneath the green yellow red
of a stoplight
and the always-on LEDs
of a shop I've never seen open
It's seeding
wispy beige hairs on green stalks
waving after tailwinds
pulling a new ecosystem down Virgil Ave
how quickly it would take root
if the cars stopped passing
and the lights stopped humming:
asphalt cracking
under the steady pressure
of slow growth in dry heat
a grid of grasslands
in five years or less
the wilds creeping back
to claim what was once theirs
But until then
the blades will keep poking
out of every gap in every curb
swaying innocently
at the edge of the blacktop.
Paraiso
A man with a cane
wandered into the coffee shop
stooped under the fluorescents
the live moss foyer
twisted plastic bag
hanging from one hand
"Paraiso?"
he asked
"Paraiso?"
to the confused looks
of the barista
curled hair bobbing
and the two scrolling customers
slouched over bare concrete
and mismatched cups
all shaking their heads
"Tu no sabes?"
he asked
shaking his own
and smiling
as they apologized
and he shuffled back through the entrance
because none of them knew
that Paradise
is a Mexican restaurant
up the street.
Red Green Orange and Blue
Red, green, orange, and blue
the colors of the tents
lined along the sidewalk
on my way to work
they leave a small path
next to the junkers
people are living in
parked on Cahuenga
each car a landfill
stuffed to the brim with
randomly collected
curiosities:
shattered cymbals and
grimy old wall clocks
that are right twice daily
bleached grey by the sun
sharing dashboard space
with broken guitars
and miles of dead cables
linked up to the lean-tos
propped up plywood boards
and stolen blue tarps
sagging over concrete
to block out the sun
Sometimes I'll hear them
huddled up inside
listening to static
pumped from God knows what
to drown out the noise
that comes and goes with
the Hollywood traffic
ticking down the day
and when I walk back
through their encampment
at the end of my shift
sometimes they'll have moved
either up the block
or onto Homewood—
construction adjacent
for the time being
until those buildings
rise up from the ground
and the tents in their wake
will move once again
pushed farther upstream
by the short arm of
private security
keeping the streets clean
They'll pack it all up
in their shopping carts
slouching into the night
with nowhere to go
but back to the maze
of endless sidewalks
that form California's
lavish welfare state
leaving a trail of
cardboard mats, needles,
and bottles of iced tea
refilled with brown piss
and from the garage
idling behind
the Cinerama Dome
I'll think about them
Whoever it was
that called these streets home
Back to Front.