After, what? The Nat King Cole Trio held over
At the Million Dollar Theatre. The old downtown
Is dead now, the muses in stone rule empty roosts.
The Japanese elderly still carry canes, presumably
To beat off the ghosts, as thick as mosquitos.
All the business is done by bottle, on the street,
The dry martini drinkers and their maitre d's,
The robed prophets of the streets, like phantoms,
Sleeping, stemming, stumbling, it doesn't matter,
A bunch of radios tuned to the same wavelength,
Vessels for any astrals who want to rest in their hair.
For the dead here went down hard, taken by the silence.
Now they are caught for those compelled to look
Like flashbulbs in the glare on their glass,
Every room reduced to emptiness.
At a certain density all cities give way to ghosts,
Who most of the time don't even know they've moved on,
For all they've remembered is still here,
Too refined for our view, we foodies on tour
The escape room LA's become. We wander fragile,
Confused, what kind of guerrilla rejuvee is this,
To draw such a desolate pot-luck ticket?
"It's like you're back in high school,"
One liminal witch snarled, to the smiles
Of her ecstasy men, the other mistral dervishes,
Who possess that relentless confidence of those
Who are successful in becoming void.
They run at you chest first, flaunting their freedom,
Cheered on by the bygone businessmen who never
Returned from errands, what do you have
To compete with everything that was?
Pink flowers float in a fountain, nature's response
To the suffering. The buildings with mirrors
Might as well be empty too, for all that goes on
Inside is seen, though credits accrue
And cold courtesy calls are made everyday
To those who only listen to voices in their head
Anyway. Could we say we know our mind?
Can we say the experience is real because we are?
Beyond the underpass treehouses, cheerleaders practice
And baseball fathers lean in, and the glow of lamplight
Drills a hole in my eye to release the pressure. It speaks
Of something larger, something that is not yet there.
