stranded in poetry

there used to be showhouses
oh God, there were showhouses
glittering temples to popular arts
first built for the rich jackasses
but quickly redeveloped for the masses
less of a profit per head perhaps but
volume volume volume
the booming of the symphonies
the blare of the pipe-organ
the THX speaker artillery
volume volume volume
nickels from the matinees
quarters for the double-feature
twenty dollar bills for IMAX

New York City visiting the
little world in vaudeville
Los Angeles Paris Berlin
on the celluloid strips
illuminated manuscripts
there was more than
that factory floor
there was more than
the filth of the farm
God, were there showhouses
they showed us the world
or at least the world
we wished there was
beyond our streets

there still are showhouses now
but very few still standing tall
first they were for the rich
then they were for the poor
later out-of-styles and so
torn down for parking lots
eventually it came around
the other way however and
the few that weren’t demolished
became non-profit venues
beautiful white elephants
treasures freaks out of time
shrines to a time
when we all got together
to pretend about the lives
we wanted to live
but couldn’t

I am in my forties
I am in a little place
up in the Adirondacks
called the Strand
memory preserved
walls of posters
great old projecting beasts
mounted to ceilings like elk
playbills and marquees
taxidermied in memory
it is glorious

I am a little boy
the Little Falls Rialto
is condemned and I will
never see the inside of it
where my father grew up on
old cowboy Saturday serials
it will be torn down before
I even suspect the magic

I am in my twenties
in New York City at
a bookstore called
the Strand as well
it too is a mecca
of tomes and lore
of legend and folly
of jester and sage
I don’t know yet
that bookstores
will be like the
showhouses by the
time I am forty
glorious but so
few and so very
far off between

but the same thing happened to radio
for rich people then the masses then
almost gone and finally preserved as
non-profit public stations, quaint
and beautiful, weird and wonderful
but only as cottage businesses for
enthusiasts and hobbyists
not profitable enough
for ubiquity
anymore

but the same cycle happened
to main streets and malls
amusement parks and churches
comic books and baseball
arcades and rock and roll
first for the rich
then for everyone else
then almost gone
then trapped in
amber for we the
terminally nostalgic

we live and die our
little lives while
cycles too large or
too small for us to
comprehend them churn
around and beyond us
blinded by the way
we believe what was
there when we were born
was always there and
will always be there
it’s one of God’s
little pranks on us
in our mortality
but it’s okay

because now I am forty
I am standing in the Strand
history spread out before me
in painting and machines
in typeface and photography
in sepia and silver oxide
and in that moment my
words betray my heart
my breath escapes my
little lungs and I
am awed

I get to be there
I got to be here
for a little while
in the palaces
before I went
it is something
it sure is something

come on, showhouse
take it all off and
show me
we’re the neither of us
getting any younger
you grand wonderful bitch
show me everything