Property Tax

On a corner in the shadow of the Hollywood Bowl
where ordinary pronouns take wing
and sex splits and stars like a shattered windshield
who will be the next to trust a friend with a girl?

Love plays havoc with fidelities
caught in the romance of rooftops at twighlight
where form follows function down the back stairs
and yet a face persists across generations.

On the Lux Radio Theatre each voice
dominates a single emotion, and the wage slave
is the flip side of the gambler, covering
the spread on the weighty past of work.

In a world seen through bottled smoke
the authentic cannot be reproduced.


R. D. Girard | Mudlark No. 21
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