Circus Liquor III

He stands there, ever jubilant,

defiant, indifferent to the indifference,

against the spectral black

Angeleno sky,

embracing his razzle-dazzle

rose drum of

alcohol and the retrograde

aura of an arcane circus

which used to traverse this country,

pitching its tentative tarpaulin tents,

its roustabouts juiced on

red wine and white rum,

its crepe-paper tigers tamed and tired,

its clowns running sad and unbound,

until it crashed down like

an insurgent asteroid to the fertile earth

leaving a bloodless crater

at the eternal intersection

of Vineland & Burbank Boulevards

in a hazy dream of North Hollywood

on a late September day

in 1958

as Leopold & Loeb

and Peter Lorre

and Igor Stravinsky

and Fatty Arbuckle

and Nathanael West

and Virginia Rappe

and Clifton Webb

and Lili St. Cyr

and Art Pepper

and Desi Arnaz

and Bugsy Siegel

and Huddie Ledbetter

and Fay Wray

and Kitty Carlisle

and Hoagy Carmichael

and Vivian Vance

and Lightning Hopkins

and Constance Talmadge

and Edith Piaf

and Elmo Lincoln

(the first Tarzan),

and Eleanor Powell

(in the shadows),

and Howling Wolf,

all came and came again

to its famed and

faded carmine counters,

still always searching for

Montgomery Clift

before the crash,

as the captives of desperation

and hostages of ennui

living among its dismal blue shelves

of incandescent sunset sorrow

and forsaken libations

and shimmering chimera

of glamour and gloom

and seasons so soft

and days so hard,

linger through the temperate Decembers

and blazing blue Augusts

with the orange sunsets

forever hovering

up above the railroad rictus

of the frozen smiling tombstone clown

embracing that perpetual blue graveyard drum

in a Hank Williams song

sung by Tammy Wynette

to penetrate the lugubrious chaos

and the breakneck lethargy

with a goodnight kiss

on makeshift lips

and the sad beauty

of the pawnshop promise of

the wild irish rose circus

in the ragged Houdini orange

halo of knick-knack sorrow

and broken radio love songs

and polka-dot insanity of

crossed-wire mesh and

telephone lines and electrical cords

hidden inside the invisible realm

behind the Maxwell House coffee

and irridescent Green Giant cans

of fruit cocktail rainbows

in Dinah Shore's crepuscular

cobwebbed counterfeit

pale-yellow kitchen

where Ethel & Julius Rosenberg

are still alive

and as untouched

and innocent

as Lorenz Hart

and Lefty Frizell

over sovereign Lucky Charms

and green glasses of orange juice

and reverse virtue

that suspends all

inverted time and

makes love

to every holy stranger who drives

by in

a sacred turquoise Plymouth

of abandoned motel buzz

and persistent ghost-town sting and

peppermint schnaps heartbreak

that is perpetually passing by

but never parking

within the

ravaged purple shadow

of the giant manic clown

with the

parade drum of yesteryear

that sings of Circus Liquor:

 

"Everything that happens,

happens here."

 

Done