Snakeskin And Bullet Casings

Dedicated to my mentor, the late Christopher Lane of Sedona Arizona, and founder of NORAZ Poets... The horizon seems like a long ways from where these leather boots are standing. Seems like a lifetime and a day from this tumbleweed to the edge of the world. Like a melody to a cowboy song Caught up in the rising embers and crackling logs, You ride across the sparkling night sky As the guitar slowly Sorrowfully Plays Just a little bit out of tune. And when I roll into town like a thunderstorm, I see you from across the bar With a shot of whiskey in between your index and thumb. I can tell, stranger You ain’t from around these parts. That the rain that blessed your cowboy hat Is from all across this open country. That the horse you hitched outside the saloon Has trodden over many fields And prairies. Rode over the mountains And sunk down into canyons. I can tell he’s carried you a long ways For a long, long time. He’s stood by your side like a soldier But still There’s a touch of loneliness that I can see Stuffed into your back pocket like a handkerchief. I can tell from the dust on your spurs That you’ve been lonesome for a long while. That you write letters To the stars Far too often And believe in a god That speaks in poetry. Every scar tells its own story, Stranger. Every lost love Every long night Every time Your lungs felt like the gallows And every time you exhaled Louder than the trumpets of judgment day. Cowboy, Show me that shotgun in your chest That kept those bandits in your bloodstream from robbing your stagecoach heartbeat. Gunslinger, Show me those dusty tin stars in your teeth And that polished silver Colt Peacemaker you kept Locked and loaded at the bottom of your throat Like a rattlesnake. Tell me those stories Spin some tails of the lawless lands you explored The battles you fought The lives you saved. The lives you changed. Pilgrim You were made out of snakeskin and bullet casings And poker chips and blood And wagon wheels and typewriter keys. Kicking up blackjack hands and buckshot Behind you Walking tall. With a player piano in the bones of your spine And a ribcage that swings open and close Open and close Like the rotting, splintering saloon doors. And a heart That was wild and untamed like a bronco Furious and magnificent like a steam locomotive. Stare at me with those Mexican standoffs in your eyes. Take me with you, cowboy Take me off into the unknown On the back of a horse with a desert monsoon in his hooves. I will ride Until my days fade away behind me Like the land Crawling away before the river That rages and rips across the west like some kind of beautiful lightning bolt. I will not leave your side I will carry you To red rocks and rushing water, cowboy. And hold you like an angel does Beneath a burning August sky. So ride out into that sunset, drifter On the back of a horse named Forever. And don’t look back Don’t you ever turn back. And if you meet God out there on the frontier You look him Dead in his eyes Like a Mexican standoff. And you tell him “I’m the new sheriff in town. And there are gonna be some changes around here.” Ride out into that sunset, cowboy With a shadow Taller than Clint Eastwood’s And never look back.