sin city

a splendid ruin, half-sunk in the sand
LasVegas will amaze an age to come
who'll seek in vain a way to understand
where such outrageous monuments came from
a Mountain Village pitched to lower tastes
a narcissist's dream-vision in concrete
grand architecture optimized for waste
rots bleaching in the South Nevada heat
where nothing's made and only service jobs
lived off conventioneers, and johns, and marks
where justice was administered by mobs
no mere blindfold, but fully in the dark
a game in which the house must always win
sustained a house of cards all built on sin