{"id":452,"date":"2011-11-28T18:08:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T18:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=452"},"modified":"2011-11-28T18:08:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T18:08:00","slug":"jason-rybergs-stars-and-crickets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/jason-rybergs-stars-and-crickets\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Ryberg's 'Stars and Crickets'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stars and Crickets<\/span>

Why don't you come on out<\/span>
to my place, baby?<\/span>
Let me give you the guided tour.<\/span>

Just take Old 40<\/span>
five miles or so,<\/span>

out past the signal-light<\/span>
and Dewey's Auto Salvage,<\/span>

'round Ms. Johnsons' Hairpin<\/span>
and over the Princeton Wall,<\/span>

through the Snake<\/span>
and across Lonely Boy Bridge,<\/span>

Hang a left at the old man<\/span>
sitting in the broken-down truck<\/span>
by the side of the road.<\/span>

Go ahead and wave,<\/span>
that's why he's there.<\/span>

And when you come to the crossing<\/span>
of Old 97 and Phantom 409, stop the car.<\/span>

Put an empty long-neck bottle<\/span>
in the middle of the cross-roads<\/span>
(the spirits seem to favor Lone Star<\/span>
or PBR, but any brand will probably do).<\/span>

Go on and give it a spin<\/span>
(and be sure to put some hip into it).<\/span>

Which-ever way it points<\/span>
is where I'll be —<\/span>

waiting for you<\/span>
to come on out<\/span>
to my place, baby.<\/span>

You bring the wine<\/span>
in a brown paper bag<\/span>
and I'll bring the whole night sky<\/span>
on a flat-bed truck<\/span>
and we'll drink and howl<\/span>
and sing shining phrases<\/span>
in praise of things <\/span>
near and far —<\/span>

things that click and chirp<\/span>
and zoom and glitter,<\/span>
right under our noses<\/span>
or a zillion miles away,<\/span>
it's all the same out here.<\/span>

So come on out<\/span>
to my place baby,<\/span>

I got everything a girl<\/span>
like you could ever need.<\/span>

I may not have <\/span>
no fancy car or a hundred<\/span>
Brooks Brothers suits or even<\/span>
a single pair of Italian leather shoes,<\/span>

but, I got<\/span>
an ocean of whispering wheat,<\/span>
time-releasing all its secrets<\/span>
in strange and mysterious frequencies,<\/span>

I got long-gone-lonesome train-songs<\/span>
always comin' in from somewhere across<\/span>
the way,<\/span>

and, <\/span>
I got galaxies<\/span>
of stars and crickets, baby,<\/span>

stars and crickets.<\/span>



*Jason Ryberg<\/span> is the author of seven books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, several angry <\/span>letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. His latest collection of poems is Down, Down and Away (co-authored with Josh Rizer and released by Spartan Press).  He lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Feel free to look up his skirt at <\/span>jasonryberg.blogspot.com<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stars and CricketsWhy don't you come on outto my place, baby?Let me give you the guided tour.Just take Old 40five miles or so,out past the signal-lightand Dewey's Auto Salvage,'round Ms. Johnsons' Hairpinand over the Princeton Wall,through the Snakeand across Lonely Boy Bridge,Hang a left at the old mansitting in the broken-down truckby the side of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}