A Cold, Hard Town

Navaris Darson

The city of LA is a cold, hard town

With so few ups and many more downs

So many more downs at such an up cost

It hardens the softest of hearts into frost

How rare to commune

And more common to frown 

In a pretty mean city 

In a cold, hard town

The pretty and witty, the mean and the lean—

The gristle that grinds within machine 

That churns out stars and burns out dreams 

On a vast boulevard that glitters and gleams

With names we tread past

With our heads hung down

In a pretty mean city 

In a cold, hard town

Suffering the silence, we wait for the ring

Awaiting the up that one call might bring

A deliverance of fortune, a dalliance with fame 

A word from a lover who once whispered our name

Waiting as the fires 

Turn azure to brown 

In a pretty mean city

In a cold, hard town

Why do we stay and suffer the downs 

Of this gleaming, glittering, insufferable town?

What marvelous promise compels us to cope?

Perhaps it is something as tinseled as hope

To sparkle perchance 

Like a jewel in a crown

In this pretty, mean city 

This cold, hard town

March 07, 2018