Déjà Vu

by Gerard Malanga

       Lost among the rubble of greed, the deletion of history,
pre–history, post–history and beyond the beyond.
Lost to the memory, though memory persists
within the mind’s eye, the camera eye
as consciousness clearly defends and reminds. The why
and the wherefore, as biblical greed entices its way
through the overlooked byway, all those cul–de–sacs,
those old, old stories, those elusive shadows
cast by the overhead el tracks.
Those tracks gone, too, and their sleepers.
The clang and the rumble echoed in memory’s ear, in a child’s ear, my ear
moving through Time. All those ghostly gathering rumbles
until only the echoes remain and deceive,
until all, too, is gone to the touch.