Monterey, CA

WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS

Las Vegas - crystalline center of the Empire

Where the pseudo Greco-Roman statue of a young male athlete has a fig leaf

covering the penis

Puritan propriety in wide-open Las Vegas

Or metaphor of United States imperial might covered by the fig leaf

of promoter of democracy

Mystery, Babylon, Mother of Whores

Babylon - the desert city of a great empire dedicated to human folly

I pass the endless newspaper racks advertising hookers and phone sex

The litter of the streets flowing with pictures of dangling bulbous breasts

smiling women spread-legged with one beckoning hand on the mons veneris

And mystery? The magic shows, thrill rides,

the hypnotic glare of the slot machines and games of chance

As I look down upon the city from the one hundred and tenth floor

of the observation tower of the Stratosphere hotel where I am staying

I wonder what this time and place could have to do with the image of Babylon

a city so far away in both

and named, after all,

for that legendary monument to hubris, the Tower of Babel

During the shuttle-bus ride from the airport the driver explained

that Las Vegas is the top convention city in the world.

An echo from the desert came to me saying

"Mystery, Babylon, Mother of Whores, who causes all the nations of the world

to drink from the cup of her abomination!"

Wes Lovette

RLove33366@aol.com.