the INLAID EAR

DIKE SUNSET CASI We stopped only to snap the Klondike’s sign. With half the neon dead, DIKE glowed bone white from the marquees into the black outskirts of Vegas. No cars but ours in the lot, but Robert tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Inside the dim, still space, most of the slots sat off, and the game tables stank with dust. We saw four souls flickering in the lit end of the room: one player with ghostly indifference and one who talked to herself, one emotionless security guard, and a barkeep watching reality TV, none of whom moved to look at us as we toured, astounded the DIKE could be operative in fact if not in spirit. A wheel of fortune hung on the wall. We each spun for imaginary prizes. *** Finished the poem version above on the train today. (I feel like it will take a few days to get back on a regular sleep schedule after the long, annual Vegas weekend.) Posted "Dike Sunset Casi" on Facebook for some nice f...

Vegas weekend. Saw the sky get light. Visited the ghost casino Klondike Sunset twice.  Jotted some notes from the most drunken state I experience. Began the first lines of a Vegas poem, a traditional observance for me.  This year, a queron.  The rest stays in Vegas.  Get it? Got it? Done!

Yes, I plainly see what’s sacrilegious (having recently hiked Mt. Diablo) about suggesting paradise is this: shooting craps at Joker’s Wild Casino, my old posse and I against the house. It’s not the industrial-strength deco, nor the band exhuming Grandmaster Flash. It’s being with the boys and letting go of everything except one little wish: for two cubes to land on two perfect twos. Paradise comes in simple attention with all distraction transformed by vermouth. Supplicate from the pass line—a vision of sweet deliverance—holy pay out. Rattle them bones, and come out, Little Joe! You can be anywhere without a doubt and reach heaven in a triumphal shout.