Santa Ana Poem by gershon hepner

While the Santa Ana blows,
air conditioning can’t cool
all the sloppy Janes and Joes
who aren’t swimming in a pool.
Though the women are in heat,
thoughts don’t turn to sexual frolics,
and the men who used to cheat
choose a beer while alcoholics
stagger round, not cold and sober,
sweating cheap warm wine and wish
for a long drink in October
when the crowds don’t smell like fish.
Poets who are air conditioned
do not have to lie and soak:
wordplay can be more efficient
than cool Pepsis or a Coke.

Inspired by John Betjeman’s “Business Girls”


From the geyser ventilators
Autumn winds are blowing down
On a thousand business women
Having baths in Camden Town

Waste pipes chuckle into runnels,
Steam's escaping here and there,
Morning trains through Camden cutting
Shake the Crescent and the Square.

Early nip of changeful autumn,
Dahlias glimpsed through garden doors,
At the back precarious bathrooms
Jutting out from upper floors;

And behind their frail partitions
Business women lie and soak,
Seeing through the draughty skylight
Flying clouds and railway smoke.

7/24/05