Ode to Chili Cheese Fries by Jason Ryberg

There is no shame in giving in, sometimes,

and just surrendering to the tractor-beam-

like pull of the local pool hall,

with its jukebox and air-conditioning

and afternoon cast of characters,

all bellied-up and big belt buckled to the bar

and each holding court, equally,

its ice-packed buckets of Stag Beer, on sale,

and a round of whiskey shots bought

by some old boy who just won his

first game of Keno, ever (and you’d

think was gonna buy back the family farm

from the bank that very day),

but, most importantly,

what might very well be the best

chili cheese fries you’ve had since forever.

But who’s got the damn

hot sauce?

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.