"Going Bust."
"Banned meat infected with mad cow disease on sale
at the Circus Circus, where just last week, a clown
was caught spraying fecal matter into the smorgasbord.
Must have taken weeks for them to nab him,
and who knows where I was by then?
My platinum Seiko left on a sudsy counter
in that Winnemucca john, pawned within the hour, the last
of my quarters gone with those cherries
from the loosest of slots as I crawled back
to a lifestyle destined to fail out there
in the suburbs of the wild, wild west.
Virtuosos playing on the jawbone of an ass, vodka bottle open,
and my pants already off, nothing in sharp focus
on that handheld cam.
Somewhere tonight, someone's being raped,
and someone else gets hunted down,
helicopter's searchlights coming through the trees,
where all the birds are singing because they think it's dawn."
[RINGS BELL]