18) What Los Alamos Really Needs

Okay, now for something a little tongue in cheek.......Warning! This is a bit risque and your children should not be reading this................ (I have edited out the somewhat more, ahem, descriptive parts :)

There is one business that Los Alamos needs more than any other. It is a business which will totally, radically, alter the social/cultural milieu and character of Los Alamos forever (or until it gets closed, which ever comes first). The following is a bit of "poetry" (blank verse, free verse, no verse, whatever, just get into the flow of the thing) that I wrote several years ago after an evening of poetry reading at a coffee house that was two blocks from where I lived in Palms -- in my bachelor days. I've been meaning to read it at a local poetry reading they have here, but......well......... (I'll do this in paragraph form with a / to indicate the line breaks)
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"Polite Society"

I am a bit too old / and a bit too jaded / for this. / An evening of poetry. / Drinking exotic coffees. / Making polite conversation. / Eating French pastries / in a smoke-free environment / with oil stains hung on the wall / which reflect someone's vision / of something (I'm not sure what). / Surrounded by fresh young faces / with bright eyes / and glorious idealism. / On stage a lovely young lady / peaches and cream skin / lithe, nubile form / lilting voice / and sparkling eyes / which reflect a virginity / that is more than sexual. / Such sweet naivete / weaving fancies of utopian bliss / with callow cadence / decrying social failings / with ponderous pentameter. / Polite drawing room clap. / Burgeoning sophistication. / The Polite Society of Tomorrow. / Was I ever that young? / A callow dreamer / looking out from the window of a sheltered life / gushing of Love and Social Perfection / in torrents of verbiage / twisted into clever contrivances / finding "The Meaning of Life" / and calling it Poetry?

I need a damn cigarette / and a good Dive.

A smoke filled / dim lit / Dive. / A place where you can swagger / a place where you can brag / a place where you can forget / a place where you can get your throat cut. / Populated by denizens of shadows. / People who have stories to tell / and the good sense not to tell / who have walked down the back alleys / that polite society knows nothing of / and have moved through fog and dark / with grace, cunning, and daring / haunting the night / with haunted eyes. / Their voices, male and female / have a hard edge / reflecting the edge on which they live. / They do not discuss / "The Meaning of Life" / They live it.

The true netherworld. / With a stage in one corner / a stage with a woman. / A sleek stripper /..[edit]...../ whose sweat glistens / in all the right places. / There is something esoteric / in a stripper's sweat. /......[edit]............../ She gyrates in slow motion / to a raspy sax / the smoke in the room / providing her only veils.

A hidden Dive / with an alley door / and a pool table / in eyeshot of Salome. / A green felt playground / for the hard bitten / who wager their dollars / and souls / on the drop of the eight ball / under a harsh light / and the scent of Salome's sweet sweat. / Bump and grind and the clack of balls / a well turned form and a well turned cue / and eyes of hard steel ponder the possibilities/ .........[edit]...................

A dusky Dive. / A dark world / wherein hover the shades of poets / Milton, Dante, Poe, and Wilde. / But the only readings done here / are the backs of playing cards by sharps / or the fronts of tarot cards by gypsies / and the careful sizing up / of one's current company.
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You get the drift. There's a bit more imagery "ivory on felt..... Salome on satin sheets..the pungency of alchohol, tobacco, and sweat......lonely walks, dark alleys, rising fog, heavy silence broken by a passing train or a cat in a trash can..... slipping into the night listening to the steady rhythm of souls echoing off pavement and the ebb and flow of traffic......." with a contrast to "Polite society, genteel sophistries cloyingly correct".

Maybe someday I will read it to the local poetry society -- without the edits. But for now,

Los Alamos needs a damn cigarette and a good Dive.