streets that once sang salvation
capricious with their mercury cracks
promised a sunlit city of night
to charismatic tramps

starlet girls drag men into motel rooms
desperate to make a buck
cafe drifters fumble for broken cigarettes
young harlots curse their luck

neon upstreet outlaws
don't hang around this part of town
just poor people's shadows and ambulance drivers
drifting around

the subway poet's disillusioned
didn't find his crystal jukebox queen
and despite his desperate, lovestruck words
the city is onerous to please