Knights of Sunset
by Joey Whitton
Sandi, you were Hispanic,
I was white—others noticed.
I was just out of Charter Grove,
a private mental hospital.
I had put an ad in Flipside looking
for friends a shade of orange:
From a 1986 Flipside punk zine ad (#49, Summer):
Wanted: connections with female punks, high
I.Q., into hardcore punk, for male 19, attempted
suicide now residing in a mental hospital. Write
You annotated The Little Prince for me—
how many years
I searched for that lost relic.
You graduated from Mater Dei in Santa Ana,
that time a couple of much older punks,
maybe Finnish or German,
picked us up.
It was strange—
like a pilgrimage,
on our way to the Hollywood Palladium.
There was something I couldn’t place—
just beyond the threshold we crossed.
Ensconced as royalty—
in the back seat of an ’84 Mustang,
your friends fans of the Plasmatics,
with Beauvoir’s produced Animal Boy
in the rear window as our sigil,
we glided on Sunset.
You were so cute, and their leather
jackets I would copy—
studs, a self-portrait
as a coat of arms—
on the back of my battle jacket.
Seeing Joey and Johnny rip
through the set, just before,
Social D. playing Prison Bound—
the whole album—a year before
their quest was completed.
After the show, a riot broke out.
Our Guides knew exactly what to do:
as a column of blue formed
into a turtle,
punks in a net,
cracked skulls—
ready for broiling;
We were led into Denny’s,
given a window seat,
eating breakfast,
watching the lopsided battle continue.
Decades later, close to death,
like Lancelot:
I realized—
I had already seen it.
And still, Sandi,
I really miss you.
Joey Whitton was born on the East Coast, raised on the West Coast, and now lives in the Deep South. Hardcore punk has inspired him for decades. His poetry has appeared in Flipside Magazine, TheNewVerse.News, Misfit Magazine, Sky Island Journal, Poetry Pacific, The Broken Teacup, Trashlight Press, and BlazeVOX Journal.
