The thousand cast iron lamps

sets the scene in a Sunset Boulevard way

and the silhouette of a hundred dancers,

their skirts flying, lifted

by the whispering fog,

their hair tied back and tempting the trilby

they wear, the adjustment and nod

to femininity only seen as the

plucked flower, dead soon,

dipped in gold leaf, sits proudly, stuck fast

by a silver pin through its heart,

erect and glowing in the dampness

of the drooping Boulevard air.

 

The hero shakes in the clammy mist

and pulls his denim collar closer

to his steaming neck,

the cold as bitter and twisted

as the man you see through the fog,

as dim at times as the gas lamps

that surround him, the aura

of invincibility,

suspect and suspicious, for he presumes

that all is good in his world, that he is above

reproach in the boulevard

and the spectral oozing of passing dancers

only flatter him.

The iron housed gas throws off its poison

into the air and one by one

the dancers fall into yellow mustard soup

that clings to their skin, that clings

to their slowing final breaths

and their breast heave with excitement

for having had the chance to dance,

for in that single file Tango through

the thousand street lamps

of a falsely carried Boulevard,

they see the hero fall to his knees,

the blood pouring

from a self inflicted wound

and their evening, damp

though it may be,

is illuminated in the yellowing

of their skin.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016