Balboa

Balboa

Do you want to see the jungle at night?
Contemporary wilderness quarantined
Within urban sprawl
Littered with souls
Floundering like fish for love.

Carried via a yellow elephant,
Watching as it leaves
Its panda colored checkerboard stripes gleam.
Slowly we circle the carousel,
Wary of the stillness
Found in Off-Season death.

Crossing broad meadows
Scarred by the skewed skeletons
Of bare oak limbs.
In the chilled darkened dew
We leave hesitant,
Shuffling signs of our progress.

We pretend to fall in love
While listening to the nocturnal cries
Of mammals restrained in their
Paced, humanely-habitated cages.

Gulping deep from cardboard cartons
Of vodka a l' orange
We hike uphill under disenchanted stars
Discussing others like us--young--stupid
Unable to look each other in the eye.

Our path yolks, equally traveled.
You lead me away from the branch
Guarded by the trench-coated gorilla
Counting tainted cash by the cloroxed moon,
And not quite blocking the view
Of needles, plastic bags, and lost souls.

Following instead the other rut
Tattooed with paired footsteps
Swaying to the frantic sighs
Serenading our false moment.
I almost see camouflaged embraces lost
Among the semen stained ivy.
Why did you bring me here?

Escape. Maybe can flag a yellow elephant.
I pause at the carousel and caress the rearing stallion
Who captivates me with his pearlized teeth
Exposed by a lip in a half snarl/smile
And is bound to eternally gallop one step behind
The painted mare prancing before him.

Seeing the damned in distorted carnival mirrors
And brass rings hung just out of reach,
Our embrace is reflected in the black eyes
Of the toll booth and you break the steel jaws
Sinking their fangs deep into its door.

Cramped together with a stool
And a bare counter
Butchered from a living oak,
Closing my eyes so I don't have to see yours,
I mingle my desperate cries
With the drums of the jungle,
Beating in endless, hopeless,
Circles...Circles...Circles.