Chapter 11 by John Barr

Chapter 11

Waiting for the marshal's men,
I can tell you the velocity
of money is faster out than in.

Squeezing nickels from cotton candy,
watching Dumbo chasing Dumbo,
the Ferris wheel coining sky

reminds me of the Northwest passage.
Questing for what does not exist,
like wrong views of God, can last

a life. (How else can a carni
of a tented city in a meadow
make the Greatest Little Show?)

The prowess of rubes, skill of swells,
the ardor of the drifter for
the runaway. The luck of the Born to Lose.

John Barr / from The Hundred Fathom Curve

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