American Sentence #10

Would Jim Croce pay this much for a burger? Uptown’s got its hustlers.

Haiku Orgasm Down the Hall at the Missouri State Hospital for the Insane

midnight screaming sex
with fictional characters
off medication

Counting Cards

under vegas lights
beside the fountains
of the Belliago
street corner
Mexicans
hand out call girl
photo cards
slap them
in their hand
like dealing from
the bottom

ten will get
you twenty

is just
a leftover
cliché.

American Sentence #9

Las Vegas lights–street corner Mexicans hand out call girl photographs.

Rule 1: The Youngest Player Goes First

we
played
candy
land
when
young

did
not
take
great
skill
a
random
chance
to
be
a
winner

we
were
ginger
bread
men
dancing
to
the
candy
castle

not
knowing
reality
would
one
day
snap
us
in
the
ass
with
a
wet
towel

American Sentence #8

Stuck in Candy Land: sugar, spice—reality snaps like a wet towel.

Leaving Downstream

bamboo rod, tied flies
hip boots in a mountain stream
roll cast with the wind
watching you disappear in
a river of wet nothing

American Sentence #7

Childhood can never be taken away, unless you wear prairie clothes.

Wheel of Fortune

I work in this
pile of shavings
carving Santa Clauses
from cedar and bass
like Pinocchio’s dad
I send them out
in the off season

somebody’s wife
will buy it in June
and when she gets
home
will say “look
honey
what I
bought”

somebody’s husband
who just had
an afternoon affair
with her best
friend will look
at the piece of
wood held
by the
Vanna White
hands
and not
be able
to solve
the puzzle

American Sentence #6

Carving Santa Claus out of cedar like I was Pinocchio’s dad.