A Gap In the Gyre -- Part 1
An old hotel in Portland
Rain hitting street lamps
The buzzer
Click
Surveillance camera
“Can I get a room?”
It used to be called the "Burnside Triangle" back when it was still gay
Bump Bump da Bump da bump
Nightclubs bangin’
Young twinks in their twenties
They chat and drink
The hopeless live upstairs
By flickering neon sign
An old hotel in Portland
“That’s $40”
“Will I be directly above the”
Bar of soap, towel, and remote
“These aren’t already in the room?”
When will she leave!
Needle, syringe, just waiting on
Tar on the street shines with Oregon rain. Back when Stark Street used to be Gay
Waiting in the room
Bulb lacking a cover
Ugly fluorescent
Bed bugs and the dark lady
Getting sick
Waiting on
“Dope! Man that’s dope!
We can get some E in Chinatown”
Twinks downstairs ain’t waiting yet
Their day will come
It’ll come like it did for me and now,
Still waiting on that great fall in the
“Elevator?
Is there an elevator here?”
When will she leave!
An obstacle in the way
I am out of rhythm
I wait! And wait
Arrival
Buzzer
Click
Door
Water
Melt
Cotton
Slam
Ellipses
.
.
.
Okay. I’m rockin’ and rollin and feelin’ human
The rhythm of life has come back
I try not to think about the jones that’s a lumin’
For now, I see gems in this shack
“It’s still happenin’ here on the Burnside Triangle.”
I say to a street urchin bummin’ a smoke.
“I don’t see it no more” the cigs bob and dangle
“Well Scandies is still bumpin’ and the bar’s filled with folk.”
“This place is just a shadow of what it used to be.” he said walking away
Gotta get back upstairs and fold the sheets for the people that work during the day
It’s called Harvey Milk now, which means that it used to be gay
It happened to Union Avenue before gentrification, now it’s call M.L.K.
Copyright © J.R. Wren-Ingalls | Year Posted 2019
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