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SøułSurvivør Oct 2014
Miss Cristina drives a 944.
Satisfaction oozes from her pores.
Got rings on her fingers,
Marble on her floors.
******* in her dresser,
Bars on her doors.

She keeps her back against the wall
She keeps her back against the wall

And I say... WELCOME!

Welcome to the Boomtown
Pick a habit, there are
Plenty to go around
WELCOME!  
Welcome to the Boomtown
All that money makes
Such a succulent sound...
Welcome to the Boomtown...

Handsome Kevin got a
Little off track
Took a year off from college
And he never went back.
Now he smokes much too much
Got a permanent hack
Deals dope out of Denny's
Got a table in the back...

He keeps his ead to the ground
He keeps his ear to the ground

And I say WELCOME!
Welcome to the Boomtown
Pick a habit there are
Plenty to go around...
WELCOME!
Welcome to the Boomtown
All that money makes
Such a succulent sound...

(the ambulance arrived too late...
... guess he didn't want to wait...)

Welcome to the Boomtown...


David and David
I used to play this song to
Death in the 80's.
I lived in Los Angeles.
David and David broke up
After this album.
They never made another.
Olivia Kent Nov 2014
Perfection lives in a goldfish bowl.
Swimming in eternal lonely circles.
No bills.
No commitments.
What fun it has to be.
Guess The Boomtown Rats got it right
Maybe "The Fine Art of Surfacing" could be exciting.
(C) LIVVI
SøułSurvivør Mar 2014
Summer 1986 Sunday 5:30AM

Misty morning in Malibu.
Seagulls stitch the sea to a subtle
silver sky. They sputter stridently.
Each elegant gull hovers effortlessly.
Entreating each other. Echos bounce
off the sound of the surf into eternity. The screeching of many a
soliloquy akin to silence.

I sit on the pier. The water before
me washes onto the staccato legs
of tiny waterbirds who wander
in and out of the surf. Little
windblown ***** of ecru and grey
wool. I worship in the womb of
the great goddess ~ nature. I wasn't to know the Creator was watching patiently...

6:30AM
I make my unhurried way up the
pier to my car. A cheap but
comfortable convertable. Nobody
walks in LA. I punch in a tape.
Don Henley. Boys of Summer.

I take PCH up to the incline that
takes you from the beach. Pushing
the pedal slightly as I slide by the
colossal bleached cliffs of
Palacades Park. There the homeless
sleep under the benches dedicated
by friends and family in
rememberance of loved ones.
Small plaques attatched for
posterity.

My hands are on the steering wheel
at 7 and 12 o'clock.I look at the cast
I wear on my right wrist. A token
of rememberance from an angry romance. He and I parted
respectively, if not at all
respectfully. I drive.

7:00AM
Venice beach. Not yet boysterous.
But never boring. The young people
(and old) still bundled together in bed. Saturday night hangovers will
be had by most of the denizens of
Venice beach boardwalk. A grainy
eyed few wander around abstractidly. Shopowners enter
their buildings, their storefronts
almost as small as booths. Graphitti
and giant works of art grace walls
everywhere ~ Jim Morrison and
Venus in workout leggings much
in evidence.

I smoke my cigarette and drink my
hot coffee carefully in the open cafe'.
I consider the eyefest of the crowd
that will congregate here to enjoy
the clement weather.
The cacophony and the clamor.
Touristas and Los Angelinos alike
drawn In by calculating vendors
and coyote souled street performers.
I look forward to seeing the
non conformity usually. But not
today. For now I sit in the quiet cafe'.

Venice beach. Vulpine. Vacuous.
A strangely vunerable venue. The
***** and the beautiful. The talented and the ******.

A street performance pianist trundles his acoustic piano on
casters out onto the boardwalk.
I ask him if I may play. He looks
at my cast doubtfully.
"I can still play..." I tell him.
He ascents and listens thoughtfully
as I play my compositions. He really
likes them. I ****** the ebony and
the ivory with insistant fingers.
The smile on his face is irrepressable. I smile back and we
flirt in self conceous, fitful fashion.
Time to leave.

9:00AM
Radio is on in my car now. A cut
from the musical Chess. One night
in Bangkok makes the hard man
humble...
I like the driving beat.
I'm going up I-10, a single blood cell
in the main artery that brings life
to the flesh of this mamouth town.
Traffic is tenuous. A boon here in
this conjested city.

I drive to Fairfax and Sunset, where
I lived with in a tiny one-bedroom
apartment with my mom. An
ambitious actress. I an ambivalent
artist.

Sunset. The Roxy and Whiskey-a-
Go-Go. Cartoon characters Rocky
and Bullwinkle casually cavort on
the top of a building. Billboards
as tall as the Hollywood sign. The
street of broken hearts for many
an actress -slash-model. They
wander about on street corners
looking haughty and haunted.
Waiting for who knows who to
honk. Their dreams have flown
away like the exhailation of smoke
from the mechanical lungs of the
Marlboro Man. Schwab's drugstore
and diner. The place where some
famous starlet was discovered.
Delivered into the arms of the
Hollywood machine. I opt to go
to the Sunset Grill.

11:00AM
I'm walking down Hollywood Blvd.
Perusing shops and persuing
pedestrian pleasures. Everyone
talks of the star-studded sidewalks.
To me they look tarnished and
filthy. Stars from a sultry smog
laden sky come to earth. The names
of some of the folks honored on
them I don't recognise.

I'm here to view movies today.
I'm definitely not going to
Grauman's Chinese Theater.
Been there. Done that. Gave the
very expensive T shirt to
Goodwill. I look around at the
proud and the plebian. The pedantic
and the pathetic. No prostitutes
out yet that I could see. Probably
toppled into bed to sleep
(for once). Deposed kings
and queens of the monarchy of the
night. The homeless hobble along
with their hair matted and askew.
Shopping carts with stuttering
wheels de reguer.

A couple of tourists with Izod shirts,
plaid shorts to the knee and deck
shoes sans socks gaze in a shop
window. It's borded by tarnished
and faded silver garlands... tinsel
Christmas tree.
"Want to buy a mood ring today?"
One of them querys his buddy,
laughingly.

I find my small theater and enter
the air conditioned lobby. I purchase
a soda and pass on the popcorn.
As I enter the theater's modestly
plush, dimly lit cocoon sanctuary
I notice very few patrons are here
for the matinee. GOOD. I finally
watch the premiere product of
Los Angeles. Movie after movie
slides across the screen. The callus
morally corrosive corporations
conspire with the creative to produce
the culmination of many art forms
in one. Cinema.

LA. Languid. Luxurious. Legendary.
Rollicking, raunchy rodeo.
Seaside city. Sophisticated. Spurious.

SPECTACULAR.

8:00PM
I wend my way up Mulholland Dr.
Another tape is playing in the deck.
One of my favorites. David + David.
Welcome to the Boomtown.

I pull over at a deserted vista. From
this viewpoint I can see the city
spread out like a blanketfof brilliance. The gridiron of LA.
Glitzy and glamorous. Generating
little gods and goddesses. A gigantic
gamble for the disingenuous and
gouache. Tinsel town. Titillating.
Tempestuous. Only the very brave
bring their dreams here... or fools
rush in where angels fear to tread.
All but the fallen angels. They thrive.

Oh! If this place could be bottled it
would be such sweet poison. I
look up at the auburn sky and back
down at the breathtaking panorama
The metropolis that is LA with awe
and angst. I carefully stub out my
cigarette and flip it irreverantly
toward the lagoon of lights.

I get in my car to drive home.
Home?
Could this imposing, inspiring,
impossible place be called home?

Well. Home is where the heart is.
And I live in the heart of a dream.
This is the city of dreams...

CITY OF ANGELS.

Soul Survivor
Catherine E Jarvis
(C) 2005
You can rest your eyes now...

I only have enough funds to
produce one spoken word
set to music... should I
do this one?
In the darkness of uneasy streets where bodies meet you head on,fed upon disease and crime
and all the time you look behind to see just who is following,
and hollowing a place to hide,inside a doorway,
beggars lay with sleeping dogs their minds fogged by the turpentine and cheap red wine and stinking of cheap cigarettes.

Debts of honour written on unease and ladies of the night who offer such delight but for a price you cannot pay,
then soon the night turns to the day,like sinking rats,rats slink away and you are left alone,left to scurry home
and feeling right as rain again,forget the pain that marches through the mews and views that pass like gashes on a sordid skin,tattooed sin will leave its mark,
skin on skin within the dark and where or what was evident,you lent to prosecutors,who prosecuted ******,another sin and one more in,into the darkness of the street,one more follow,one more meet.

Cheats and harlots,charlatans,cut-throats,turncoats all are here,running ragged through these wolves that see a sheep and bleat you may
but day backs into night
where light fades with the rights you thought you had
and 'it's bad' is just another way to say,
you've got it wrong again
you're marching through the mews of pain
and wake to find you've lain
with beggars
and with sleeping dogs.
In the deepening **** there's always some acerbic wit to hand you a *****,hand made by the powers that be just for you ,to dig yourself out or deeper into the pooh.
Life as we know it,deep in the dark pit, stinks,
I ink out these words amongst the flotsam of turds and wonder what's going on,
where has the scent of the roses all gone?
No doubt stolen away by those who can pay for the luxury of stuffing their noses with perfumery,
I see a time when all this can be yours,but for now it is mine,
so ready yourselves, shovels in hand and we'll all shovel away in our, 'green and pleasant land'
and one day when we've shovelled the **** all away
we can start to live.
it's hard enough to shake yer bones awake and get into the game and that name,
Monday,
one day gone day, try and get your mojo on day

Monday plays like an old fashioned song
scratchy on the gramaphone's
trying to make you shake yer bones

I am just a bag of bones ready for the stewing ***

what's Monday got that I can't see
what does Monday do for me

It's full of dinosaurs
and
boring old men

I need the 'magic boomerang'
the one that makes the time stand still
then I'd wind back the clock until
it was Saturday night

The problem is this,
no one remembers
the TV show
on Australian networks
from so long ago

I do though
and

'I don't like Mondays'

Oh
boomtown rats?

Don't remember a bomb that
never had a boom or a rat in a town
that never found room to chew on a Monday

dinosaurs
gave
Monday a bad name.
Aaron LaLux Jun 2016
So I made a song with this poem. Please listen to the song when you read this poem. It's kinda experimental, please let me know what you think. Okay, here's the music link and here's the written poem. Go ahead play the song and read the poem at the same time :-) I'm REALLY CURIOUS to see what you think about it for real. Thank You and YES I Love You. ∆

Soundcloud; Aaron La Lux, Welcome to Wall Street;

Wolf of Wall Street

Belly of the Beast,
Bull by the Horns,
welcome to Wall street,
where it's always calm before the storm,
sun rises in the east,
then sets in the palms,
joker brokers don't give a ****t,
Robin in sin giving no alms,
just stock certificates that are counterfeit,
the poor being robbed blind distracted by Tiffany's charms,

Belly of the Beast,
Bull by the horns,
Raging Bull ****t stinks,
blood red roses and platinum thorns,
devils defecate drama causing trauma dreams decease,
when the American Dream finally dies no one will mourn,
we'll all just grin and bear it like we do when we have a disease,
commerce is always calmer before a perversely well performing storm,
broken hearts we wear on our designer shirt sleeves,
no cuff links just conflicts and economic hit men in uniform uniforms,

in Belly of the Beast in Hell's Kitchen brewing up a **** storm,
can you smell it?
I tell it,
can you hear it,
We're it,
though that what that we are I can't fully describe,
going to hell in a Bentley hand basket,
but at least we're enjoying the ride,

one way,
upside down,
in an elevating elevator,
self implosion motion here in boomtown,
one way on the rise,
rising down,
one way,
on the rise,
rising up full of hot air in a balloon,
until the bubble burst and we fall from Cloud 9,

as we free fall out into nothing...

World wide assisted suicide,
I held him until he died,
self assisted suicide,
from a self inflicted desire to die,
had that beautiful corner office view from floor 49,
until he jumped out the window when he went out his mind,
sometimes the darkest souls burn the brightest lights,
for better or for worse these are the days of our lives,
be careful what you wish for be careful what you find,
and I'm not Darth Vader but welcome to the Darkside…

Who decides,
who lives and who dies?
No one does,
and that's because,
everybody dies,
Bulls eye,
spot on,
bodies in,
the Hudson,
no man or mother is a match for Father Time,

what Son?
What's one,
life when all is divine,
as we walk the line,
with a pocket full of Johnny Cash,
Persian rug burns I've developed a rash,
as we walk the line,
tight rope,
tied between Twin Towers,
a World Trade of world slaves,
intoxicated by the power,

in the Belly of The Beast,
got the Bull by the horns,
so we grin and Bear it,
we take the roses with the thorns,
as we count the moments,
down to the final hour,
there's no time left for atonement,
because our souls have been devoured,
so now we're in the Belly of the Beast,
forgot the Ten Commandments here in the 11th. Hour,
at war with ourselves death will be a relief,
looking forward to the moment when we can finally rest in peace.

Peace.

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

from The H Trilogy;
available worldwide 7/7/16

https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Trilogy-3-TPT3-ebook/dp/B00YB4ZBDW


Bam!
brandon nagley Jun 2015
As I poised the deserted western valley's,
Ten thousand feet above the billowing vapor,
Cactus to make as friends along the desolate berth,
I felt the curse......

Not just any old bane,

Yet as I glared off into the perception of that timeworn Gaia,

Between the red rock basin's,
I was vigilant of the indigenous people's indignation,
As I saw them, on horseback and bare foot tracking,
The backs marked by sweat, as tis their eye's spoke of prophecy
By blood and anguished expertise!!!!!

Their spirit was mighty in warrior sense,
No recompense should they gave, nor any to return the favor!!!
They yelled out to me ( Weeping willow) "you are welcome to be among us young one", as this voice quavered and cracked I replied in most happiest form,
" I see thou brother art porous"
As we both met eachother in the in-between down below the bottle shaped precipice!!!!!
As at the moment,
I gave them mine only water to help them extend their journey's!!!
I felt their longing,
Their yearning's rip me as mine soul became a joint dual to their own,
("Ourn province was perverted")  the chief said in an almighty thunderous inflection,
As in his shadowed reflection,
I saw all direction and ley-lines cross on the map of his face!!
("Ourn children and women were embezzled ") he mumbled amongst dusted breathe,
I gave him all I had left,
Also the crest from the falcon on hand.....
("For these strange swain have lost their own ways, and hath gambled with our's" ) in a fleeting tone of words he gave so vibrantly.....
As a moist tatter fell from both ourn facultie's,
We cultivated eachother in brotherly philosophy proficiency,
And I was high to be amongst their primordial efficiency,

The Superior with his Turquoise chaplet on
Had given me a serpent shaped prudence receptacle
As his espial he gave as exceptional spectacles!!!!

We blended as one beatific vertebrate!!!!

As they galloped off chanting consecrated hymn's,
I went mine own way,
Preaching and teaching,
Giving love as one teething,
Whilst the one's who lost themselves were still sleeping!!!

As I awoke them by the farsightedness of that wargripped forefather who had just split me,

I saw mineself in the middle of that boomtown,
Feet in motion,
Rain dance to glorious sound!!!!

With a squash blossom necklace to sway to mine neck!!!!

I had shown something new to these newly come arrivals,

"Something these people were once thought to think was " brutish animal behavior",
Now has embraced this sacred rain dance.....

As I continued to foxtrot,
Gravel and clay upon mine face
That serpent shaped box

The people of the metropolis had rollicked right aside me!!!

As they began to tear down the fences,
The trenches
The steel towers they have polluted with!!!

They put aside their guns
Made music with deity drum
And encamped the fire to hear me!!!

As it wasn't me who spoke......

Tis,
The map faced chief all along!!!

As a harmonious peace crept the red bottled cliffs!!!!!!
Moonsocket Jan 2017
Social stanzas make my life easier

Patchwork strife splits through the eardrum

Kaleidoscope assembly lines and the abstract remains king

So many sad faces and I'm sick like a benadryl boomtown

Painted expressions for complicating

Minds blur from vitamin deficiency

A resigned sun never was needed

Your abrasive salvation never was found

The necessary means for excess lie in these majestic masquerades

Your high hopes with your sour patch picnics

The mercy monk offers wrinkled hands for currency exchange

Fungus for a stomachs churning

Lake shores drive home a new colorless grain

Window shopping a new distraction

The last one bailed when the world knocked on my door

Bulletproof glass for your failed unrest

A muted television makes more sense than one properly articulated

The mouths move like sanity

Drip Drop and the bulb burst

Shards of common clutter

The glow of sublime distraction becomes obligatory
Moonsocket Jul 2017
Insect rivalries disrupt microscopic tragedies

Their tiny objections echo through the infinite


Muted chaos mingles with cosmic clutter

All is lost when stars prove sinister

like so many peepholes for a pervert god


Madness makes moves...

I see eyes reassemble for nonsense

Their only crime was observing

So many sad faces and I'm sick like a benadryl boomtown


Scenes full of primitive make believe

Haphazard halos and plastic queens

They disperse for stranger tilts

fluorescent hums and cancellation

Torn between vanity and breathing



Raised on R ratings and nicotine

Box forts in the junk pile

Yellow sky and rat king stances

Footsteps shrouded by loud speaker urgency

Where do they go?



Time runs low on another freak show

left in shambles by habitual slow motion

Pluck the remnants of distinction

pure intentions may rearrange promiscuity



We are only human

We are only a collection of frantic omissions

These distractions come potent

These observations become motives


Excuse this mind that remains remote

pondering sickness and considering ghosts


One last party for obscurity

One last dive into the spill

I never wanted your minds or graces

I only wanted this banshee to stay still
It's been a strange day
Ryan O'Leary May 7
Beggars on horseback,
gate lodgers gone beyond
their station, are these
born again, nouveau riche,
sans compassion, Irish.

Immigration expectation,
coffin ships and famine.

But oh; our amnesia, how
conveniently we cannot recall.

Thoughts and trends are
histories boomerangs, so, lest
it be forgotten, we pollinated
the entire world, we piggybacked
our imperial masters, we worker
bee’d on their ill gotten hives, it’s time
to share the honey, with our drones!
Lashed with fatigue,
eye cannot fend off lethargy
hazy, hot, humid weather zaps
mental physical, and spiritual energy
even men of cloth
various and sundry clergy.

Undoubtedly summoning Parson Brown
currently out of season,
though stratospheric demand
for his person now
unprecedented as summer
dog days force physical slowdown,

nonetheless he would
experience immediate meltdown
booked solid throughout
"Winter Wonderland,"
when deep freeze
doth make clampdown,

no matter sung by masses
with uncertain reason
caroling 'bout said enigmatic figure
heard in every hamlet
or sprawling boomtown
belted clear as bell

o'er nor'easter howl
undeterred by polar vortex windblown
chilling atlas shrugged
off undaunted facedown
weathering arctic blast
making snow angels

comfortably numb jollity reverses frown
even elderly folks
sport about though grown
spry stick figures shoveling tunnel
courtesy white blanketed lockdown
"careful ma am" not
to fall on keister or crown.

Presence of said parson
linkedin with spate
of blizzard conditions and
Frosty the Snowman,
whose power to bring society
to standstill will not abate

proof positive to commander
in chief who cannot extricate
whether from climate, and trumpets
what he doth cogitate
dismissing global warming -
calling out "end of debate"

twill usher doomsday, cuz he
and trolling henchmen skate
on thin ice, and whose
dawdling crass, base
actions only accelerate
day of wreck conning

when most species will
lack mien ways to acclimate
all the more rhyming reason
to bid mortality adieu
and slumber permanently
battened down hatches
with me sigh ease oompa loompa mate.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2019
you can drink sometimes,
and hope to find something
beside the bottom of a bottle...

but sometimes you take
to the night,
   and just...
    stop under an embracing
winter's take on
a tree...

         the night is misty,
and crowning the distance:
just ahead,
   a street lamp...

       a night akin to:
10ml of milk in a glass of 300ml
of water...

  or perhaps i faked
the accurate fraction...
but the auto-suggestion
came:

should i paint this?
****... no brush, paint,
or canvas...
the best i can do is...
blink,
   and hope my memory
bank is not gupled
by the River of Heraclitus:
that i hope to remember...

passing a skeleton
of a tree, on a winter's
foggy night,
with how...
light off the street lamp
almost breathed,
or rather: cushioned
the "pattern"...

          i almost desire to
forget the democratic
narrative of the internet,
i'm here: shadow-self,
nudging a few
"chess" pieces of jumbled
letters un-jumbled
into words along...

spirals...
   i have to call words in
the english language
either: waterfalls

     d
     o
     w
     n

or spirals:

              d
                               o
                             r
                       a                 w   (↻, ⟳)
               w               d      
                                    n

like: imitation of the mouse-pad
doing a condor's
encricling motiff...

but you know what's uglier
than even turns
a Medussa into stone?

   artistic ambition...
              some would even
call that: integrity...
or: it's not plagiarism...
it's...

               no spare
               to allow to borrow...
something or other...

but artistic integrity
contra ambitions...
            i was just about
to recite a boomtown rats
"closure" /
    court case for
   the originality debate...

but i figured:
   there's still that night...
and there's that skeleton
of a tree,
   there's the street lamp...
and there's the fog...
and whatever dynamic
made compact by the two objects
and the three elements
of: synthetic light,
universal night and fog...

i'll admit,
i am as docile as a
   non-ambitious worth
of man:
or a
derelict doll-house's
worth of ever
having concerns
for...
   stupor upon
the mantlepiece...

               i have become
so lethargic that
i have lost all concerns
for the counter-motive
of jealousy
that would be worth
(it) being acribed
to success...

              i still hear voices
in the distance,
and upon the wind,
and they mostly utter
the word:           NO
(yes, i know,
pedantic of me,
one shouldn't colon
a futhering and encapsulate
a colon furthering
with anything in
italics:

  which is a variant
of the pedagogy of
the pedant, concerning
          tautology -
i.e. there is no double
emphasis, like: so).

- yes, because the real world
really wants
that sort of cognitive
baggage
in a man making a cameo
of a supermarket cashier's
worth of hours...

  more like:
give this man a ******* grenade!

**** it:
  ✄ ☂ ☼  ☯☺...

the world has moved far
beyond what was once
"new" to me...
in that... it has advanced...
and i have lost ambition...
this sort of crap
could possibly come
from a convent akin
to Taizé...

so yeah... ctrl + c / + p
and: scissor that umbrella
and wait for the sun
of a taoist worth of smiles...

sorry:
i'm just about to back-the-****-off
with the Hebrew
counter to the modern take
on the Giza tablature
that's:
    mmmmm' bugging me...

******* gizmo-talk...
   retards anonymous...
all that's missing is some *******
braille and some sign-language
and...
            whatever this sort
of language is:
cheap-****!
   tabloid press!
  
             and there's still about 70cl
of white *** in the bottle...
and no...
i wish i could have painted
the sight of
that tree, in fog...
against the backdrop of a street lamp...

but then again:
   strauß never wrote an opera...
and j. m. w. turner
never painted fog in the night...
sure: mist at sunrise...
over the sea...
but never fog in the night...

now: i do like my "frustrations",
since they're such
pedantic observations that
i can only reduce myself
to laughter...

            luckily: not plunging
a knife in a someone that's not worth
grievance...

me? i want fog in the night?
10ml of milk
in a glass of 300ml of water...
there... fog... in a glass.
Ryan O'Leary Sep 22
.                        Rat$taR

                   Is it Hollywood?
                   no it is Hamelin,
                   Boomtown, but
                   not the same as
                   Bob Geldof’s one.

                   It is home of the
                   fairytale, by the
                   brothers Grimm,
                   Jakob & Willheim,
                   Their Pied Piper.

                   Lost his job with
                   Rentokill, he went
                   out on his own got
                   a start up grant &
                   never looked back.

                   But one day when
                   the rats were in the
                   sewer eating turds
                   of swine'r schnitzel,
                   the kinder followed.

— The End —