A Crow, a Stag and a Biscuit by Jason Ryberg

A 

shot

of Crow

and a pull

of Stag after a

long day of hot coffee, hot wind

and nothing but a cold biscuit to act as ballast

is about as close to a supernatural /

     quasi-religious experience

as I generally get these days, and I’m grateful

for it and all, but sometimes I

have to wonder if

my standards

might not

have

dropped

some

in

the last

couple years.

Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry,

six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders,

notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be 

(loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry 

letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. 

He is currently an artist-in-residence at both 

The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s 

and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor 

and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection 

of poems is The Great American Pyramid Scheme 

(co-authored with W.E. Leathem, Tim Tarkelly and 

Mack Thorn, OAC Books, 2022). He lives part-time 

in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red 

and a billygoat named Giuseppe and part-time somewhere 

in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also 

many strange and wonderful woodland critters