Atlantis to Los Angeles
We seek cultural clues
in stains from cigarettes
and clotted cream
left on tablecloths
in palaces, newsrooms
and striptease clubs
But we can’t find them
obsessed with lexicons
and mystic signs
and even if we could
they’d huddle misunderstood
in grimy depths
Where canisters of celluloid
piled aimless in nostalgia
gather dust in some
abandoned basement
of Vienna, Leningrad
or in a cavern under Bollywood
viewed once or twice
and PG rated
And yet we dream of them
our nights disturbed
by punctuated visions
of Marlene, Gary, Deepika
Hercules and Sergeant Pepper
all crying faintly under heaps of
broken masonry
As calendars and libraries
collapse and from a previously
quiet ocean a wall of mountainous waves
sweeps pages, scripts, love letters,
recipes, Al Jolson, Lincoln,
Moses on the mount, into
the gloom-filled depths of what
was once so vibrant
A million conversations
hardly overheard
by coelacanths and whales