LAS VEGAS

Across the desert
Hurled out the mouth of the city of angels.
Loping eastward in traffic.
Forever in traffic;
Yes, there are more of us.
Or of them.


“In bocca al lupo”
To this synthetic elegy
A shantytown in disguise.
Neon palaces strong-arm one another
Vie for sky.
Stolen from other dreams
And raised high.
Here
All history and place
prostrate to the brute force of the dollar.

Ancient Rome and Paris
Egypt in fiberglass
The wild west in concupiscence
In saloons the new gunslingers
Cradle their chips with nervous fingers
Trigger-happy.
Replaceable props
who fire
blanks at the final showdown.

The dealer deals
in the clockless place
Under artificial skies in perpetual sunrise
The weather never changes
As the air conditioners drown the sound of the wind
Howling over the empty hills
Waiting, Uneasy bedfellows.

Bastard city
Half miracle
Half atro/city
Opulence and ashtrays
in viscera
Twisting
In alcoholic permutations.

Odds are with the house.
Even if you win it’s still a hotel.
You cant stay unless
you
Gamble with your life.

A well policed riot
barricaded
By acres of suburbs. (cont.)
Seniors with huge televisions
and
Bathrooms full of lotions and medications
Golf carts and the club.
One house indistinguishable from the next.
They joke about returning to the wrong place
As if there was a difference.