LOVE FROM DOWN UNDER: FOUR SCENES

LOVE FROM DOWN UNDER: FOUR SCENES

 

(For Veronica, Ian and His Girl Friend at Treasure Island)

 

1. Scene 1

Her shriek was a heart stopper:

A giggling thief of a gusty breeze
Blew off her loosely held suncap,
Bounced it off a scorched pavement
Into the lazy glide of the lagoon
Circling the mocked-up pirate ship,
Tidily painted as one of the fares
Dotting the Sin City’s boulevard
(Not of broken dreams yet, ripped
Pockets maybe) of busy strangers
Agog over this melange of kitsch
And lord-knows what monuments
Of a catch-as-catch-can chance
Makes a mockery of gambling a life
For a peep at a pot at rainbow’s end
Or a naïve lust for a moment of joy,
A quicksilver dream no longer there.

2. Scene 2

Wordlessly, he climbed over the rope

Fencing off the pretend boardwalk,
Kicked off his worn rubber slippers,
Jimmied himself between the walls
Of the prop and the marina deck,
Gingerly lowering his thin, bare feet
Into the dark water, and with his toes
Pulled out old gal’s suncap (courtesy
Of Mercedes Benz but not the Benz
Of hats), now all royally drenched.
With a faint smile, wordlessly still,
He handed the dripping head gear,
Once her majestic top now gripped
By his toes, his wet sole as bottom end.
 

3. Scene 3

Thank you’s followed by tourist banter,

Granny asked: Where are you kids from?
Australia, he said rather curtly, little
For that broad continent down under.
Thank you, lad, her dotard of a husband
Dutifully chimed in. What’s your name?
He asked, icing his civilised gratitude.
The comely girl friend laughed stoutly,
Proud of her lad, who said, still sans smile:
IAN, as in I Am Nothing. Thank you, Ian,
Became the senior strollers’ a capella.
 

4. Scene 4

The lad might have been right, after all,

It seemed like nothing kind nor heroic
And gentle happened as the promenaders
Of Las Vegas Boulevard strutted on like
Blind roulettes and absently rolled off
The boardwalk rushing to lose their money
If not selves in a city where caps blown off
Grandmothers’ heads are not even a silly
Distraction, though gallantly retrieved
By lads called IAN (I am nothing) who turn
Out for these frolicking elders, a gentle,
Anonymous something, someone, from
Down Under. But You Are Something, IAN.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

03-26-14, The Strip