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on average (a brief history of various laws)

by Gabriel Ricard

About five hundred clever, desperate children
are fighting it out in those vintage Vegas hallways
and tunnels with six thousand spray paint colors
noisily reviewing just as many one-man shows.

It’s that apartment building the city started
in 1988. They wanted the angels to quit their day jobs
and do everything they could to make sure
those four hundred stories shot out in every direction
and annihilated every loser monument within a five thousand mile,
three thousand year radius.

Life sure is funny sometimes. History is even funnier
when the best narrator for the job dresses like a murderous heroine
from the days when Stagger Lee was just a punk kid
with a movie deal shining under those stupid sunglasses.

She’s only gonna sing when the ambulance rolls its top down and relies
on faith and good looks to be able to stumble
into the scene of her latest shopping spree.

She knows every one of those children’s names
and sometimes feeds them when the war needs a break.

An old rumor still hangs around that at one time
she was in love with a couple of brothers who thought red lights
just meant you should stop when the spirit moves you.

All stories are possible through criminal empathy,
and the beach is just several long bus trips south
of the best police station around to get a drink on Easter Tuesday.

Someone once went and came back to tell everybody
that you could go there and sleep in the water for days
at a time with nothing to fear. Wake up when things are finally safe
and feel decades younger for the hell of it.

Very few bother to make the trip.
Very few know what it’s like to make the long trip home
falling asleep in the back of the bus. Mouthing the words
to the next song on the playlist and trusting the driver to get them
back in time for the next considerable love affair.

Very few is better than nothing.

10/02/2010

Posted on 10/02/2010
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Paul Lastovica on 10/03/10 at 05:20 AM

playing this out on the silver-screen behind my eyes

Posted by V. Blake on 10/12/10 at 03:58 PM

Looks like I missed this one. Glad I found it! My favorite lines are the first one through the last one.

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