A Tramp Shining (for Jimmy Webb)

What luck applied is not part wise & part jejune?

No one trusts luck like the down & out, under the stress

of living it up in Vegas, blowing into town like a hot-winded simoon

crossing the desert, a divine wind that blows obsess-

ively like this tramp's hot breath on the dice he attempts to roll snake

eyes out of. The table talk goes this way: You're a smoot'

talker, he says, a duffer who plays a bit o' pat-a-cake

with his fists now & then... & ain't that shiner a beaut!

The table is a private barge for someone whose study is garbo-

logy, & there is nothing lovelier than a scow with its display

of seagull satellites. Imagine a single Martian moon—Hobo—

instead of double Deimos & Phobos—a tramp shining brighter than day

circling the table & chanting        gem        gem        rhinestone

before letting go the dice—the throw releasing his peculiar cologne.

Copyright © 2006 Richard Fox All rights reserved
from Court Green
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission