Nightmare Alley

 
 Nightmare Alley -
 desperate young lovers on the lam,
 a wounded veteran who has forgotten his name,
 an array of theoretical perspectives,
 ostensible acts of violence.
 
 Nocturne -
 kids with dreams, a little fractured,
 a man’s wife with nothing but larceny in her heart,
 half-hearted romance where
    “I” passes insensibly into “we,”
    “my” becomes “our,”
 and individual fate escapes commitment.
 

 Desire for - 
    mirror images,
    forlorn gazes
    dream girls with flash hawk faces
      the very sight gives new hope.
 
 Poverty Row, where
 everybody has an angle,
 social murder is legitimized by war;
 breakdown of suppressed agitation,
 codified amusement,
 and non-identity.
 
 Modernist Mortal Music - 
 all heavy swing rhythm and
 a loping low-key theme,
 pondering a watershed of dissonance; 
 The Zeitgeist Theory - 
    downbeat and overrated.
 
 Cutting Edge that unifies the technology
 of making a fast buck, with:
    psychopathic all-consuming conflagration,
    retrograde ideas,
    equally ominous
    mercenary humiliations.
 
 Having a big argument with myself,
 and losing.