for Jim Samples
you old fucker
it's your birthday today
and usually we'd be
sitting out front here
sipping on a half G of
Jack but you've been dead
awhile now and there's
too much snow anyway
so that's out I'll just keep
drinking this wine for you
and try to dredge up your
voice again talking about
days of redneck glamour
drinking 40-cent drafts at
the Blackboard in Bakersfield
when you and Merle were both
dumb and good looking
and those oil fields paid
the dividends a pussy
licking young man needed
to speed him down that
road of roughneck years
forever lost forever savored