2002

Lines of Poetry by 20 Nevada and Las Vegas Poets

In the Lewis Street Pedestrian Corridor

Curated Vegas Poets Dayvid Figler, Gregory Crosby and Deborah Kohen, the Poets Bridge was designed and integrated into the design of the Lewis Corridor beautification project. The poem, The Long Shot, was written and performed by Gregory Crosby for the opening dedication.

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Lewis Avenue Corridor
Poets Bridge
An Art in Public Places Project by the
City of Las Vegas Arts Commission
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The Long Shot


After the springs that brought them, after the fort, abandoned;
After ranches became grids and lots became cottages and gardens;
After white men in high collars stood in sunlight's oven, checking
Their railroad watches; after the dice began to tumble and the river
Became a lake, subdued by its concrete mansion; after the citizens
Grew whiskers every May, and played the pioneer while a giant
Cowboy of neon greeted them with a "Howdy" like thunder; after
They worked and drank and stopped at that first sign of Permission,
Sign of the Windmill; after the gunners learned their deadly art,
Preparing the sky for the scattering of atoms; after that psychopath
Brought glamour and death and "businessmen" with strange names
Who skimmed the new sea of green like birds diving at the bounty
Of the oceans; after the Voice became a Chairman, and the lounge
Became a temple; after girls became feathered, legs up to necks,
And fantasy sprung wildly from the arid land in every direction;
After a billionaire scrubbed his thin hands yet again while a King
Re-enacted, nightly, his coronation, and "Our Thing" withered into
The bottom lines of corporations; after white tigers roamed, and
Juice flowed like elixir of life from every connection; after the boom,
The tile and the stucco, sprinkler heads gushing while the turnstile
Spun and 4,000 came each month for new starts, their second and
Third and fourth chances; after the implosions, the unions, the
Retirees, the families that raised their children, the American
Dreamers who beat the odds and those who lost, the suckers, the
Addicted; after all this, when the springs of pleasure and promise,
Of profit and providence have long since expired, dry as that
Font that once drew the thirst of the weary into the valley, and
The cities that line the boulevard of this city fall into ruin,

They will look upon us, saying, They made their own luck.
Selling it to all takers, they built a world like no other,
And lived in it, and thrived there, and shone and sparkled,
Glittering in the sleepless night, each of them a facet,
A brilliance, of the strange diamond they had fashioned;
A million to one that such a place ever happened.


--- Gregory Crosby
September 24, 2002



While looking for the way
to fail
we fall
While reaching for the joy
of flight
we find it.
—Alan MacDougall

Who in her right mind talks to the moon? I do.
—Aliki Barnstone

Mirror-dipped circles, with or without will
is what we are: rock soul, rain flesh, seed mind.
Circles intersecting vibrate faster
and shuddering unite: one circle, vaster.
—Lenadams Dorris

And beyond the mountains
lies the land of clocks
all the people here
come from there
No one intervenes
because it might be them
No matter where they came from
they belong here.
—Dayvid Figler

Make no mistake
the city is aching for its King
his white jumpsuit spangled like a bullfighter's
In the city of thwarted loves
a million wedding chapels
would be dedicated to his name.
—German Santanilla


A night in Las Vegas, jazz-mad,
the smoke-riding wind suffers insomnia,
Fanning my sampan, I know not how,
through the furry gorges on Yangtze
—Stephen S.N. Liu

The Strip a wonderment of sullen searchers
planted firmly on shifty earth, looking.
—A. Wilber Stevens

You wonder
what you'll do
when you reach
the edge
of the map
out there
on the horizon
all that neon
beckoning you
in from the dark.
—Kirk Robertson

This wasteland is just beginning to cook…
we get to shape it
shape it
shape it.
—Harry Fagel

To live is the greatest poem—
We ache with the weight of it
We die of the lack of it