An Afternoon Walkabout

Greetings from the Hill

A pleasant walkabout, away from the machine,
supplies from Wallgreens and Faustos and a look
down Duval, tourists filling the sidewalk bars,
mostly walking and gawking, searching for what,
"Is not and never will be again."

Leaving the goods in the studio then a walk,
that strange walk into the past,
a journey when things were different,
streets were not paved with tourist gold.

The sun was the gold and shadows silver,
porches were alive with families and friends,
pets to love and plants to feed, music from a piano
not noises between commercials nor a tourguide
telling lies to oldfarts from cruiseships.

"Jaaaacckk," screams my niegbour of 33 years,
holding abstracts of her property back 133 years.
Too fast and in spanish the past was updated.
"I no like what they do, and him, I spit on."
So much for memory lane.

The speculator stuck in his money pit gone quicksand
his senior years needing junior's income and
a rich husband for daughter...
moving in on Halloween.