The Golem of Los Angeles

Parable of Aladdin in Oakland

20 Parable of Aladdin in Oakland “Would you mind minding my store?” asks the Persian woman in Piedmont Lighting, and she’s out the door in a breath leaving me alone with giant lilies that bend brushed steel necks long and tapered as a swan’s over a desk. i duck my head so not to catch my hair in the solar system dangling from the ceiling, blueberry and custard planets, the halogen dwarfs and incandescent giants, and soak in the brilliant milk of this paradise of lamps. Here a standing lamp lifts its burnished face, and here a reading light concentrates on a book, and other shining eyes bathe me with such gentle attention i feel the bulbs of my eyes bloom light, as if someone has flicked a switch and made everything i see shimmer bright, releasing all the genies with a single Let there be light. i worry if the owner is all right looking Persian on the street in these days after the Twin Towers went up in flames and then came down, since people need someone to carry their blame. These days it’s hard not to worry when it will all give out, our president trying to stop fire with flame, the oil in our tanks turning to cancer in our brains, the weapons waiting underground in silos to give off their great light 21 and send the planet spinning through space like a dead bulb towards a trashcan. i think of all the lamps in this marvelous altar, each one a luminous tongue giving out a shout of praise, and wonder if the world will end in fire. from what i’ve seen i’d say it’s just as like to end like this, with a finger flipping a switch. ...