Las Vegas visited

The traffic flowed along the 8-lane boulevard
not in a steady stream but in controlled bursts
the impatient drivers speeding between the red lights.
The man in white slacks
as if in some kind of addictive haze
…..paused…..
as a black and white joined from a downtown neighbourhood which the night before had played host to an orchestra of sirens.
Ignoring the relative pauses and the crossing places,
dodging between the school buses and outrageous semis,
he took a short cut to the next casino in the pack.

 

 

From the Stratosphere to Mandalay Bay
Streets for making money
Streets for losing it
Streets lined with beggars and ticket touts
negotiated by visiting gamblers
visitors rich enough to stay
visitors with money to burn
Rich and content,
happy in the sun

Searching for a refreshing drink
impassively passing by on
Streets lined with beggars each with a pitch
to extract a mile if given an inch:
the shrivelled female addict
the ex-serviceman frozen with blank stare
the wheel-chair bound, bent double, head hidden in a mass of Rasta locks
the ever hopeful standing in the sun, “even a quarter” makes a living

Unmoved and unswayed pass on down
Strolling to the next place to bet
impatient passers by
passing by on
Streets lined with touts each with a pitch
to extract a mile if given an inch:
75% off
no string attached
free map, yes really free
Swiss Chocolate?
What’s wrong with you all?
Why so coo all?
It’s hard to make a living standing in the sun

 

 

Unmoved and unswayed I pass on
up
21 storeys above the sprawling city of fake, I sit
reflecting from my perch
detached,
yet immersed in
Streets straighter than Roman roads that once fed Caesar
Streets which now criss-cross the desert to distant mountains
all roads leading back to Rome
bringing riches to this palatial home
a nutrient lattice for Caesar’s Palace

 

 

Twenty-one storeys below in the land of the free
a grateful worker
cleans hotel minibuses
with pure Nevada gold

The Rabbit Allegory

There once was a rabbit who wasn’t like the other rabbits as he could run a little bit faster than them. This rabbit came across some hares one day in a field and he saw how fast they could run and he wanted to be with them and join their set.

Well most hares don’t want anything to do with rabbits, but it just so happened that this group of hares was an enlightened sort, an inclusive sort, who wanted to share the benefits of their way of doing things with, not only other hares, but with Leporidae who were lesser than them.

So these hares made it very welcoming for the fast rabbit or the faster rabbit to be welcome amongst them and in time he moved to live with them and he shared in their view of life. It was as if he had died a rabbit and had been born again a hare. He was a bobtail and they were the hind legs. Because the fast rabbit had left behind his society to join with a new society, the hare society thought he was special and treated him as such. Even though the fast rabbit was not as fast as the hares he felt he was better than them because he had given up something of value and because the hare society respected and applauded him for that.

All went well and the faster rabbit made a close friend with one of the hares. But one day  when they were out in the field a fox came along and started chasing a group of hares. Of course it spotted the slowest “hare” – the faster rabbit – and started to chase it. Though the rabbit darted this way and that, the fox gained on him. Just as the faster rabbit was about to be caught, and he surely would have been, his friend the hare ran in front of the fox distracted him and allowed the fast rabbit to get down a hole.

But the hare himself stumbled and the fox was able to catch and kill him.

From that day on, though they were still as welcoming, the fast rabbit had no close friend in the community. After a while, it dawned on him that things would never be the same again, because he did not have that same closeness with the rest of the hares.

So the fast rabbit, disillusioned with his life with the hares, returned to his old life with the other rabbits, but found there that he didn’t fit in. He was different from the others. He was used to something different: a different outlook on life, a different way of thinking about things. He couldn’t fit back in to rabbit Society so found himself in a situation of being unable to be where he wanted to be neither with the hares nor with the rabbits.

Disillusioned with that and unable to fit back into society he became a very lonely rabbit. Fast rabbit was no longer welcome in rabbit society. He was a stranger to them as their ways were strange to him. He lived on the outskirts in a sort of no-one’s land between hare country and rabbit warren. He did not have the skills to join in mainstream rabbit Society and he no longer felt welcome in hare society because he had turned his back on their kindness.

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