The Black Dahlia's Last Smile

She came out west from Medford town,

Dreams in curls and velvet gowns.

Elizabeth Short, just twenty-two,

With movie stars in her eyes so blue.

L.A. streets, they swallowed her name,

A ghost in lights chasing silent fame.

She wrote her folks she'd make it big,

But fate had other plans to dig.

Black Dahlia, in the city of sin,

Where the boulevard whispers and the dark begins.

Cut down cruel, with a joker's smile,

They found her cold in a vacant mile.

Ooh, the Black Dahlia’s last smile…

January 15th, '47's dawn,

On Norton Avenue, a child looked on.

"Thought it was a mannequin," she said with a chill,

But what she saw makes the strong turn ill.

Body split clean, no blood at the scene,

Laid in a pose, disturbingly serene.

Glasgow grin cut from ear to ear,

A killer’s art, precise and clear.

"The most grotesque crime in L.A.," the Times would cry,

As reporters swarmed like flies to a lie.

Some called her a call girl, a Hollywood flame,

But her truth got buried beneath the shame.

"The Black Dahlia," the press proclaimed,

A nickname born of noir and fame.

But her voice was lost in the spinning reel,

While men made myths she’d never feel.

Black Dahlia, framed in flashbulb lies,

A girl made ghost ‘neath L.A. skies.

Cut down cruel, with a joker's smile,

The city feasted on her style.

Ooh, the Black Dahlia’s last mile…

Suspects came by the dozens, none stayed,

Dr. George Hodel slipped through the shade.

With a darkroom sealed and whispers deep,

Even his son said, “He killed her, I believe.”

Letters signed in cut-up scrawl,

"Here is Dahlia's belongings," sent to the law.

Purse and photos, smeared in grime,

As if her killer toyed with time.

So raise a glass to the dream she chased,

And curse the world that left her erased.

Not just a body in tabloids vile,

But a woman lost in a cruelest style.

Black Dahlia, the silent star,

They found you broken but shining far.

Cut down cruel, with a joker's smile,

You haunt the hills, you walk the mile.

Ooh, the Black Dahlia’s last smile…

Still lingers in L.A.'s file....