Strolling down the Strip

in the flashing pool of lights,

among giant screens with the 

latest greatest show,

and taking in the flow and

intersections of people bizarre, 

of tourists amazed and locals bemused

by what all the fuss is about,

and dodging the combinations 

and permutations drawn from 

everywhere in the world. 

 

A woman approaches and

invites me to a strip show,

sidling up with allure and

describing its fleshly pleasures in

language concocted for her work

on the Strip in the noise and

the glitter and the smell 

of heavy smoke; but with a smile

I decline and she, Hispanic,

says that it’s okay,, 

even if it’s not okay at all,

for she must survive this place 

of arid misplaced dreams.

 

Walking up and down this night’s parade,

the Strip seems short but really is far,

as I move in and out of casinos 

that look all the same, with their 

swirling cigarette smoke curling in the lights,

and sounds of success and failure indistinct,

and chips piled up at tables,

and the smell of fast food joints 

drifting through the endless night,

with girls dancing in spaces pattered 

for disorientation so you have no reason

to leave this timeless place at all.

 

Everything and nothing here exists,

blossoming in the desert like a 

rose without its scent, like a river 

with a dry bed waiting for 

the flow of what can never come.

 

15/4/2019