Blowing the Dunes

Las Vegas, 1993

They blew the Dunes to dust,

Flaunting End of Era

with fake cannons and mockery of flames,

pyrotechnics fitting coronation of a pirate king

that set the demolition crew on edge—

colored bombs bursting in air

raining cinders on rocket fuel and dynamite

mathematically placed, waiting

for the real work of rubble,

public fears of asbestos dust allayed,

security stopping scavengers,

memory hunters trying one last raid—
 

From the street we see dead windows,

breathe sulphur smoke thickening

over honeymoon couples and their cheap rings,

names exchanged in the night,

skin upon skin in a city where flesh is uncomplicated,

where all that happens there will stay

until the rooms themselves explode

and what happened there is released

in exhalation of breath long held,

what leaves the body in the end

blinking at the lights, the lift of desert air,

the tang of mesquite and sage. 

All the fanfare humanly possible didn’t mask

The waiting truth of Execution

publically displayed: 200,000 faces on the street

gawking at the windows where I danced,
silk of the songs an illusion of elegance,
anything you wished you could be.

I think of Ozymandias, the colossal wreck.

I think of Death Valley and the rare chance of visiting

at the moment when its futile flowers bloom.  

 

                                                                                       8/2012