Husks of graffiti-covered factories
melt into the industrial wasteland
like dried-out scarab beetles clinging to the Sphinx.
The pioneers who pushed up the buildings
might have believed in a limitless potential for the city as they applied a dream tourniquet,
then injected their sales pitch
into the collective stream-mind:
polished rims, leather interior, dual exhaust,
the rumble of supercharged hormones
awkwardly fumbling with buttons, clasps
and zippers in the back seat,
while drive-in speakers crackle; the sunset
is crimson-cheeked from watching how unashamedly night spreads herself open,
showcasing the void between her thighs,
and how cold the stars can sometimes seem
from a distance.
Fate was reflected in the rearview mirrors of cars named after the city's founder,
who, 200 years prior, had been called a scoundrel and, "...the most wicked man in the world."
The vehicles helped propel mass ambitions
towards highschool romance, employment at the factories, 2.5 children, electric ranges, flamingo lawn ornaments, Sunday drives after church, followed by an afternoon cocktail,
two for the Missus;
all of it made in America,
by Americans,
for Americans.
Then it stopped.
The ghost of that energy can still be felt
haunting buildings left hollow by the foreclosures and bankruptcies
of cursed business, haunting litter-strewn streets that resemble a shanty found in any nowhereville, anywhere, third world conditions wedged into the first.
Do the addicts in the crack-shacks,
or the johns who prowl beneath a burned-out neon moon that hangs above a doorway on Clark Avenue,
feel the ghost of that energy?
Sometimes it is barely discernible
as it waits to puncture veins
and inject its poison—
a redesigned drug
made from ancient origins—
while motor-music echoes
between lithium-grey walls,
ears weighed-down
with memories of chrome.