Factory Setting

 

Love is:

A studio at Santa Monica Boulevard

Three soundstages and twenty-acre backlot  

Purpose-built to dream-pump.

‘Grand and pompous, rightly doomed to fail’

Should we quote the New Yorker - that Pauline Kael.

Things grow still more awkward

When others too kill conviction.

 

The sky is ablaze, fireworks spitting sparks that fall

And bejewel the trunks of giant golden elephants

And great machines are up to make rain

For us to run away from, and puddles

For a lark.

 

We join a parade of dancers on the strip and

For a moment we sweat like stars

On the sidewalks of Mars----and then visitors

Who claim they’re from high in the hills

With pills from the past, offer future representation.

‘We’re contortionists,’ you tell them

And we jiggle off laughing.   

 

There are expensive belts with silver buckles

On day working dreamers from small towns.

Candy-soft glass made to shatter easily

So no-one breaks their ass going through

Just who will it be

Tonight?

 

It’s the paradise of cocaine and kipple that

We’ve always wanted----slot machines and lights

Whistling, brightly.

You can lose me in the casino, nightly

While I drink in the bar and I’m sure we’ll meet

Up in the room

Tomorrow.

 

Love is:

A debt we share each morning----in natural light

‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,’ you tell me.  California

Weeps all around us----the hardware folds.

‘This one’s from the heart,’ I say

As our factory turns to sand and empty streets

And giant golden elephants are released.