Bill Baber

FIFTY-SEVEN LOUSY BUCKS

got me eight miserable years
in this crummy joint.
Fifty-seven bucks
that I never got to spend
and if I could have, on what?
Booze?
A girl?
Drugs?
A bet on some horse?
Eight wasted years
and for what?
When they let me out
I ain't coming back.
But then
that's what I said
the last time.


Bill reads "Fifty-seven Lousy Bucks":



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Bill confesses: "When I was younger I lived in a small town and knew a petty criminal who was in and out of jail. Every time he got out, he swore he was going straight and wasn't going back. he always did. This is for him and the thousands like him."


BILL BABER has had over two dozen crime stories published and his stories have recently appeared in Rogue from Near to the Knuckle, Hardboiled Crime Scene from Dead Guns Press and Locked & Loaded from One Eye Press. He has also had a number of poems published online – one of which is being considered for a Best of the Net Award- and in the occasional literary journal. A book of his poetry, Where the Wind Comes to Play was published by Berberis Press in 2011. He lives in Tucson with his wife and a spoiled dog and has been known to cross the border for a cold beer. He is working on his first novel.