When I'm bombed, I stretch like bubble gum.
-Mark Lanegan
We
sat out on the deck and watched the pass
Of fast and flashy cars move slowly down
The crowded street--why
do they buy those price-
Intensive cars with a
thousand ponies
Beneath each hood--to
sit at lights each night
Impressing
pedestrians?
Those cars would
Prefer the open, loping spaces of
The
desert, only a few miles away
To the noisy
hubbub of some
desperate night.
Those people have turned their
ponies into
Wads of
chromed-up,
supercharged bubble gum.
A west-coast weekend on
Rodeo Drive
With old friends from the old world, spending this,
My
final night in
L.A. watching cars
That look like
tethered ponies, tending to
The busy, inner, empty feeling--I
May never see the sun go down again
On
Sunset, but I'm glad I saw it once.
One tethered pony roars, screams, and takes off--
The
falling sun left behind--to the night
And the desert--headed for
Las Vegas,
But until then, that pony is free to
Tear across the quickly cooling
desert
As it was surely meant to do.
I raise
My glass, a
toast, and look back to the sun.