The lost angels have gone off the rails, Off tumbleweed reservations, one tweaker Kept 7 trains, 1000s of people, stranded For hours, all up the line to Bakersfield And everyone watches the system collapse, The inexplicable malfunctions In the way people love and understand As we watch our beliefs on the board go down. I’m a lucky one. I escaped the good fortune Of commuter rail suicides on either side of the drive And the bridge dive suicides. The 10 freeway Has fallen through! The hills are angry with smoke As we wait expectant but senseless, accepting But numb, the stoic SoCal cool where there would be Homicides in Gotham, third rail replies To the no explanations, not even, really, lies. It’s a party, in fact, a copa cabana in the club car, A conga line where everyone can sing Of their endless love and get hitched in, Laughing like the moon at jackals. The anonymous station we were deposited With only hope left in our pockets was once The scene of a town’s, any American town’s, joy As the freight rumbled through with a shudder. And when we finally move, it feels somehow historic, This epic fail, to withstand all the traps of time Placed in our way for us, and still be standing, as, At the end of the endless, you’re still there, intact.
