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The next Silver Birch Press release will be GERALD LOCKLIN: New and Selected Poems (1967-2007) — which we plan to make available within the next few weeks. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here’s a poem from the 172-page collection…

NOT SUNDAY AFTERNOON

by Gerald Locklin

My son has kept his Sunday afternoon

Free to go hear jazz with me.

I swim from noon to two,

Lift a few weights,

Pick him up at quarter-to-three.

I put Sketches of Spain on the

Tape deck of the Taurus as we

Head north on the San Diego Freeway.

He reads his Hemingway—mine too.

Coming over La Cienega, haze and

Glare rise from the whitened basin

But the hills of Hollywood still

Catch one’s breath. Miles moves

Into Solea and my son puts down

His book, broad boulevards almost

Deserted, a corner taco stand,

The side street rows of California

Bungalows: at times L.A. is still

The town of Philip Marlowe,

James M. Cain,

Nathanael West if he had not

Been a New Yorker.