The Slow Death of Glory

It has been years, nearly a decade, since the storm
and most of the town has been rebuilt.
Some of it torn asunder and re constructed.
Some of it saved and restored.

But not the Paramount.
So damaged.
The cost of restoration so high.
The cost of a conscious destruction even higher,
it is left, flickers of its grandeur still showing
but storm to storm, flaking into the sea.
us mere voyeurs unaware of the irony
as we wonder if we are safe
around this slow death of glory.

About this poem.

This probably should have been an essay, not a poem, but here we are. About the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, still not refurbished after Hurricane Sandy. I wish I had seen it in it’s heyday, but I have only known it this way, as a ruin.

About people too, so often damaged by the trauma in their lives, so rarely restored.

Maybe I will write the essay some day. Not today. It is still too close to the bone.

Tom