NEVADA – THE SILVER STATE / THANATOS

                     

                     

                     

          Limited Editions
          Bunchgrass Press
          Columbia Basin
          Washington

 

                     

                     

                     

             Old Silver… Aged Stars over Nevada… the Usual Bluff

             A little money, half a continent to drift,
             you’re a past-peak gunslick of the non-rhyme.
             Today you’re driving 35 or 95, nothing average,
             seeking badger silence, the next cinderblock motel.

             Stars overhead with ragged postage stamp edges:
             glitter for the begging. The sleek Chinese girl
             at Mona’s Ranch refuses to believe you’re only there
             for a T-shirt. She wants to camisole-strip real slow.

             Legends have their own cares. Doc Holliday coughs
             at the underside of a Glenwood Springs gravestone.
             And Jesus fondles Mary M.’s breasts, pounds a jug
             off a table in heaven to scare off the missionaries.

             And… when you flip on the motel bathroom light,
             it flashes before dying. With whiskey head-throb,
             with strawberry-taste skin-memories of someone,
             it’s good to sleep with a .45 below your pillow.