ghost bars

with more than pleasantries

to feed our thirsty eyes,

there were still only spoonfuls;

the depth of field, picturesque,

was narrow enough

for drowning alone

our stars, fact similes, pixelate

in ways only imaginable;

Congress, debating

Hollywood's square roots:

"our national language

always has been the noise

inside VHS tapes".

480 lines interlaced with

myth; we began to exist

in a meta of elvis, of elvis

singing in barbiturate

every bar past

its expiration date

choruses, in tic tocs that

tuck themselves in:

"way on down".