Ballad of Las Vegas


By night, Jack walked the Vegas Strip,
avoiding lights and brash hotels
and people pushing in the dark
with hands of silver, dreams to sell.

His pockets bare, except for three
scuffed marbles he had found somewhere
and brought to peddle on the street
to random souls who wandered there.

He caught a woman’s eye and said,
“These marbles, ma’am, you need to own.
Just plant them by your hotel bed
and in the morning they’ll have grown.

Behold this marble: see its bubbles
float, entranced, like tiny pearls.
If they’re released, they’ll multiply
to bring you limitless returns

exploding through the hotel roof,
to make a fortune in the sky,
mapped out with marbles, tumbling
like slot machines before your eyes.”

He sold them for a modest sum –
enough to buy himself a meal –
and as he ate, he thought of all
the dreams that he could beg or steal,

compact them into glass and roll
them nonchalantly down the street.
Next time you’re on the Vegas Strip,
look out for marbles at your feet.



Chasing Sunsets


Long days, long journeys
to new destinations,
hours of desert roads.

Heat rising on the road ahead
looks like puddles,
till you see it close, and it goes.

The air outside is alien –
we breathe familiar songs,
the dust of home,

as we chase sunsets,
trying to catch the final rays
in a tiny metal box,

reaching out for the reddening.
So pretty, you say,
these endings.

The night expels us
like uninvited guests
who have stayed too long.

Tomorrow we travel a new road
towards a new death,
only so we can say

we were there
and we saw
how it ended.