A moon rose pure placebo the day
the dismantlers came to The Eidolon.
A puppeteer hidden in a hard hat
worked sticks and wires from a crane,
his rude yellow wrecking ball
a scraping bald knuckle
-hyphenating-
the yore tony a la mode pink marquee:
–
I
D
–
–
O
N
They hadn’t seen a movie there in years.
Instinct drove to the location
now hairy with graffiti and wounded windows
boarded up. “Turn left there,” she pointed ahead,
and here in the V of what used to be
a local lemony clichéd Hollywood and Vine
hung the vertical sign of rainbow chasing lights
popped and glum, now a moon at noon.
-OW -LAY-N-
The wrecking crew worked amid yarns,
a thrilling tale of piracy, or chivalric ennui,
beach tar and feathers and a damsel tied to a rail.
Though no one was actually tied down,
back in the days of pretend, when make-believe
waved sun and sea of the bottle bags of beggary,
and kids danced to the possibilities of being free.
SW-P -EE-
They drove across town to watch the razing
crew with crowbars and heavy metal
tear down the slumping palatial playhouse,
where teens once held hands,
listening to rock and roll bands,
and before them, kids spent summers in buttery
fingered and fizzy toothed afternoons
matinee rapt in spinning film,
a veteran vaudeville player changing reels.
-HIS SAT-R–Y
Nothing could save now the last-gasp plight
of this episodic imperilment, and the moon fell.
The two cold cats sat on the bus stop bench
across the street from the deconstruction,
a couple of stoned Cupids deprived of sleep,
sagely reminding one another to be brave
and behave, lest they be kicked out again
like the day they adlibbed Beatles
and lit bee dough up in the loge.
The Coming of the Toads 