Boardwalk

I have several friends who take pictures of abandoned places, including amusement parks. That’s what inspired this piece.

Boardwalk
~

Locked forever in her eternally darkened booth,
it's frayed power cord left dangling,
blowing haphazardly in the wind,
just short of being lost forever beneath the crest of the building dune, a fortune teller stares blankly across the foreboding sea.
Her eyes no longer sparkle
with the knowledge of some
young lover's hopeful future.

The air, no longer rich with the scent of frying dough, whips forlornly
past her, howling hopelessly
as it helps itself to a few
decaying planks from the track
of the once not only feared but
highly respected "Tower of Dread".

Dead flecks of a once vibrant blue swirl in tiny metallic tornados
as they plummet from a height
once offering the most coveted landscape for hopeful proposers from the highest seat of
this now lonely Ferris wheel.

Shattered glass blankets lie
beneath the door which now
dangles, threatening to leave
behind its single rusting hinge,
it's only lifeline forbidding
the pull of the murky depths below, and the abandonment of the haunts that once simultaneously frightened and delighted a motley crew of visitors.

It's permanent winter.