LUPE VELEZ WITH A BAEDEKER: IRVING THALBERG WITH A CIGAR

The smoky candle end of time
declines. On the Rialto once.
With Lupe Velez. Prepared the crime.
But Irving's valet was no dunce.

Had seen Tirolean dances there
before. And though she was no whore.
Perhaps was hired by the state.
Yet would not scare. And knew no fate.

Time's thick castles ascend in piles,
the witnesses to countless mobs.
Each with intentions, torches, throbs.
Bequeath the coming dawn their wiles.

Yet Irving was not meant for this.
He books the first flight to the States.
He suffers to receive Lupe's kiss.
While all around the chorus prates.

There's something does not love a mime.
Tirolean castles built to scale.
There was a mob. There is no crime.
These modernisms sometimes fail.