This place…
Take a look around.
Take it in.
Take it with a grain of salt,
but this place used to be an outpost.
This place used to be the tunnel’s end.
This place
used to be unique
alone
inspired.
This place used to be
the only rock club
in a four block radius.

Now
you look around
and you see nothing but clubs:
rock clubs,
dance clubs,
zydeco clubs,
whatever.
But back in those years,
in the in-between days,
there was nothing in this neighborhood.
Nothing but abandoned lots
bodegas and the hopeless.
Things have changed
just a smidge.

That hi-rise being built
was a laundromat
and the bar you’re eyeing so sketchily
used to be a bar called Danger Room.
Everything around here was dangerous.

Not really, though.
Everything was safe
but everything looked bombed out
and that was the way we liked it.
Only the strong
or the knowing
or the daring came out this far.

Now, this is no longer a bastion,
no fort in the middle of the wilderness.
Now
this is the center
or it was
before this neighborhood got played out.

For a time
though
this was the center
and before that
this was the border.