The bleached moonlight

frosts the cold evening air.

Joy girls on the corner,

living on yesterday’s dream.

 

Streetlights streak faces

hidden behind windshields.

As tired men in dusty cars

make circuits of the blacktop.

 

And the racket boys run their

own street corner roulette.

Hoping to win that

empty chamber game.

 

The vacant eyed zombies

stagger down Kensington Avenue.

Squeezing their last nickel bag,

all shouting out “why?”

 

While in the halls

of the downtown circus

the glad-handers and grifters

hold their dances and parades.

The panderers 

of girder and glass

and the chamber hustlers

do their barren charade. 

 

Blue and red reflect

on burnt out windows.

A reminder to all

the desolation angels.

 

Opalescent squalor mirrors nothing

and get entangled with fear.

The city sees life in slow motion,

and writes its poetry poorly.