paradise
by Larry Thoren

Paradise has wet sidewalks these days
and ghosts of hard killings are wispy
in the backstreets
You can dream if you want to
but bear in mind
feathers are ruffled here.

Guy on the drag suffers from fetal position fear
and his face is a roadmap
of underbelly Austin.
The python weight of the downtown sky
Makes him shorter than he used to be
but when the sound bites begin to bore him
he says pink slip poetry
in the floodlight shadows
of a billboard on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

While a bean can rusts in the weeds
the children squat in broken glass
and watch the parade without end
on the other side
of the hurricane fence
My face is solid rock
as I keep watch
on the dead tired wall
behind the whore's come to(sic) me eyes.

The rain flows over the curb
                                        to join the other dirty waters
and the early evening headlights
                                         throw their beams around.
It's roaring quiet on Rosewood Avenue
and the big oak tree across the way
                                                   sits by itself
and sometimes I get the feeling
everyone in this town is a killer.

One time I asked a cabbie
to take me away from it all
but he insisted I give an address
and he just started his shift
and he couldn't bust a twenty

On Sunday the bells call the clean shaved
                                                              righteous
and I jsut want the beast to spit me
                                                     into a calmer place
but where you gonna hide
                                       from the American eagle?

The suburbs thump and rumble
like a ghost train
loaded with cattle
on their way to slaughter.

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