The Tent People of Beverly Hills

Faceless on the Boulevard of Mirrors,
north along the flats of Rodeo Drive's
stripped bald head mannequins,
they come treading on
the fears of high fashion,
tents on their backs
and on their cheeks the beach
black tar of tasteless chic.

As if to dress were not enough,
we would have them wash
our backhand slap
from their Rimbaud faces.

And all through the supple stick lash
wands of their eyes, all
through the wind whiskers
of fishbone and sour cream
curdled by fame,
they see along the fruit stalls and deli box bins
of Wilshire Boulevard,

the world in the room
of their small walk-space;
they are never certain
whether they are merely asked
to fill a role like memory
in a thoughtful dream of place
or live always short of major
in a dying minor sort of way.

As if to live were time enough.
We would have them end
beyond their means.

Hours long they scrabble
onto walls and mirrors
the words they would like to leave us,
the haunted prints of thought-falls
drifting out of mind's possession
like nostalgia or grief.
The world has lost its face.

There are no hobo kings or pioneers
late to live by. When they lie
above the windy steam of sewer grates,
dream-still and all-mind gone,
they warm their body holes to sleep.
They wake to be awake.
In the dreams of many
who never took the road
to gypsy sorrow, breathing is enough.

It is a mistake to feel themselves alone,
to fill their skyholes up with dark.

There has never been a need
for crying, the dying say.
Once we move within the final
inch of breath, there is no other.
There are a million tents in the universe
with holes we mistake for stars.