If Times Square expanded into a city, a theme park
hub luring wide-eyed comers from all corners
eager to revel in amusements and excesses
contrasting against a spare desert backdrop,
if it were popularized by gangsters and performers
as Mammon’s den, paean to hedonism, ode to overkill,
in time infused with the urge to mimic attractions
from elsewheres, establishing thereby a celebration
of imitation, then indeed it would look much like this.

Like toddlers, fulgurating lights insist on
our notice and attention, whelming then fatiguing
even the most spry among the flock.
Easy marks and high rollers alike,
we linger in herds before geysering fountains,
succored by accompanying soundtracks,
inspired to similarly transcend bounds.

Those wearied by debauchery’s delights
self-respite by digressing to the rouge gorge
awaiting just west, patient and demure, where
iron-pigmented stones compel meanderers away
from the artifice of signage and avarice of slots,
from acrobatics and pyrotechnics astonishing
sore eyes yet falling short of imbuing an akin
sense of serenity amid grandeur.