Las Vegas 1930s

A series of poems

The pulses thrumming of snow in the desert.

The Northern Club slabs bacon on slabs of water.

The beginning of the past looked nostalgia.

We had the smallest office of any newspaper

Prostitutes and neon signs assorted other citizens.

Jazz musicians on the air at

KGIX on air conditions easy

A flood of humanity to point a way to the future

with the nightmare vision of Hoover glower

for a new dam where people could afford to dance.

-

People living

by the sides of the road

by the sides of ditches,

by the sides of buildings,

by the side of their car with attempt nearby,

shack towns and Hoovervilles.

Soup lines and bread lines.

No marble here to sing the

O o o o that Shakespearean rag from 1912

it’s imperious and melodious

We going on living:

people living

and dying

for a chance

to have a job.

a job that made

water and power,

the lights blood of an unreal state and an unreal city

that were on the move from people

living.

-

Neon Freemont the biggest thing with water

since Gilgamesh made the flood look wimpy.

Resorts were allowed

Oh but games were played

But gambling had arrived.