NCAST

Nevada is no land of bread and roses
but of pimps making promises the desert forecloses
unsustainable life despite what everyone supposes

desert dirt doesn't support bread and roses
desert thorns don't grow with gifts for noses
desert grains didn't make bread for Moses
cactus, rock and long chalky roads is
what the dessicated landscape exposes
a world full of jabs and pricks like a ho's is

the story each brothel owner carefully composes
of bread with jam and bathwater roses
like a carcass in the desert quickly decomposes
leaving las vegas orchids fed through hoses
pumping crystal white dumbing doses
forcing the bud open til it forever closes

S.M. Berg