
“Ruins – San Francisco Earthquake” by M. DeNeale Morgan
rush of gold carried wild
down waterless rivers
terrific street flowing
with women and whiskey
beneath bawdy hills
where the bay rollers
lapping at lawlessness
gave a dull metronome
backbeat to rinky-tink
tempo of player-pianos
insistent insidious fog
smearing yellow-lit nights
giving cover to hell-raising
gamblers and gunmen
madams and mountebanks
plying nefarious trades
a geography utterly
lacking in conscience
new paths to perdition
impenitent cobbles and
insolent boardwalks
resounded with squander
of riches and character
moving unwittingly closer
to downfall to cleansing
destruction by punishing
means of calamitous
physical forces upheaval
and fire unleashed by
the terrible earthquake
of nineteen ought six
and the barbary coast
was forever no more
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