Tag: saloon

Moon at Midnight – Part XXX (day 2004)

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(part XXIX)

Willow knew how to throw up the teepee
But I quickly learned how, too,
It was my first time
But with Willow and Moon Cow giving orders
It went up easily
We set up Moon Cow’s close by ours
And slowly we became acquainted with our new home
For the summer, anyways,
For now it was our home.

When we first stopped
And made our home here
Mountain Chief had sent out scouts
In every direction
To make sure that we were indeed
Not going to be easily found
Every second day new scouts
Would relieve the old scouts
And so it went for the first while
Without any event to note of.

We learned that in the two valleys to the North
About a 4 hour horseback ride
There was a small family settlement
Mountain Chief asked me if I would go
And introduce myself to them
So that they would know we meant peace
But also to see if they were friendlies
To see if they were friendly to Natives.

When I arrived at their house
I wasn’t expecting what I found
Truth be told, I didn’t know what I was expecting
But at any rate
What I found really didn’t seem normal
She was deaf and he was blind
They had a dog with three legs
And a son, well more a man they called boy,
That was a good two feet taller then both of them
And to my untrained eye,
Didn’t look a lick like either one of them
They all seemed happy enough though
And I got along just nice with them.

Her name was Sara
And it turned out that her hearing
Wasn’t as bad as one first thought
And what she lacked in hearing
She made up for in a delicious soup
His name was Bill, and he was an old miner
He had come West to the hills to find gold
And I didn’t ask if he had found it
But he did tell me he found Sara
And knew he had found what he came for
Sara had already had the son
By another miner who had taken her
One night while visiting the saloon in town
The young man’s name was Johnny,
Who they both called Johnny-boy
And just watching his hands work an axe
For firewood to get ol’ Sara’s stove roaring
One could see he was as gentle as a pillow
But as strong as an ox
Bill told me he went blind from drinking too much moonshine
And that was the last time
He touched the: “Gat-dang stuff. Pardon my French, little lady.”

part XXXI

The Boxer (day 1933)

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You were a boxer
Every Thursday night
After Big Jim’s Saloon
Took a bottle and you
Out to a cobblestone night.
A muffled mind with intention,
Fireworks covered in mud,
And a slow slur that wound up
Like Roadrunner
Walking a tightrope,
The top rope
Of a dark, four cornered ring.
You liked the big city
Because your slow down
Never coincided with a dead end.
Your betting days
Flashed jackpot on your bedroom wall:
Red, green, and yellow.
And your highschool sweetheart
Hung alone on peeling paper
That crackled back at you
As you walked naked
From your bedroom
To a comfortable routine
You knew so well.

Sweet Aroma (day 1319)

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Sweet romantic raindrops held out their hands
For my memories and heart splashes.
But I’ve already paid for the month,
I brought my warm sweater;
I’ve come for the show.

Two ladies danced into the night,
Slow waltzes around and around
As I sketched out the scene with dirty charcoal.
Hands in the air and sing out the song,
Pale spotlight in a smokey saloon.

Flat e (day 1215)

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There’s an undercurrent of pressure
Rolling around like two dollars
In a drunk-night saloon.
I’m making headway on flesh insight
With no time to spare.
Gin’s hovering around
Whispering sweet nothings in my ear
And two dollars keep talking to me.
Two dollars.
Two lone shooting guns
Winking at me from the corner of the room.
I’m lost in a swimming pool
And walking down main street
Whistling a sad song to a lover
Who’s missing from my arm tonight.
It’s a long walk fishing out these memories
With my flat E ringing through
Cobblestones and lampshades,
Dubious shadows I’m not stopping to
Make friends with.
Two dollars.
I’ve made my peace here tonight.
My undercurrent of pressure
Hanging low with the full moon
That’s grabbing at my coattails
As I make my way toward the exit sign.

Leftover Lovers (day 1110)

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She was a woman who cared for her lovers
The same she cared for beggars and friends.
A little lone heart with a name stuffed with blues;
Hobo’s delight in a $10 Marlborough,
And my love never lasted in that smoke-house saloon.
Love in a little back door room.
My dreams and I was heartache by Tuesday.
Though I swam like a digger, I was surfaced and saved
In my own lonesome song.
She was a heart made up of elastics
And my twangy delivery
Was the Wednesday that I’d never start.

So don’t go treating your lovers
Like left over flipping page books.
It’s a forgotten stack, the dusty pile,
And we’re a never ending love song
With toes getting colder.
A common answer to sufferin we kept inflicting,
Two unspoken lovers on two lost Sundays.
Two out of tune guitars
Waiting to behold warmer mornings,
Just waiting on leftover tea.

She made me get up later
So we could talk of traveling gypsies
And listen to leftover records
We’d forgotten to play with brandy.
I collected your answers in tiny glass jars
For your leftover spells.
I wasn’t branded in passion;
Painted on that old saloon wall
With some unspoken love song
And leftover cigarettes sailing the sea
As I woke up to Wednesday
On a Tuesday afternoon.

Smoking Gun Saloon (day 1098)

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I was gambling at the Big Gun Saloon.
A lone mescalito biting the fat end,
Lookin’ for a chance.
I gambled often, too often.
A riverboat of floating luck
With legalized six shooters
Yelling my splashing soul goodbye.
I danced with happy Jacks
In a smoking gun saloon.
Ladies with rumpled tushes
Blowin’ kisses on good nights.
Everywhere: adultery in bedackled gems,
Fishnet in blackened stockings,
And a room awaiting cowboy’s boots.
I loved her like a riverman,
Steady and full of piss
Navigating curls running this stream long.
And then she whispered:
“If you ain’t out by noon,
I’ll be throwin’ in yer boots,
Or if you fancy another ride
I’ll be you’re shining star all night.
But either way, it’s been two days
And I ain’t seen you high stack all ride.
So if it’s all the same to you, Sir,
I’ll have mine paid: fair share.
So I can find myself a meal,
I’m hungry and loveless,
Waiting on this ordeal.
Now I trust you, and don’t be puttin on,
This was the deal we made, my trust.
Now do me kind and have it out,
And I’ll be on my way.”
Those were the words I heard sung again
As my splashing soul went out,
And the legalese was spitting up
Lead tipped water kisses into my eyes.

Dragging Left Wing | Chapter III (day 939)

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VII

I liked to call her Julia, mostly because it was a name I’d heard long ago in a black and white movie based in Paris that was laid so thick with romance even the reel to reel it flicked upon was heavy of heart. She always laughed and smiled like she didn’t know what I was referencing, nor did she attempt to recognize the pure emotion I was laying thickly about the dense air.

She knew my routine: a thick coffee I could eat with a spoon, a medium sized side-dish of whiskey. Just to get the gears oiled. My pen flowed more freely with the coffee; whiskey was for my tongue. Julie liked my charm.

VIII

I never had errands about town like the rest of them mobsters and cowboys had. Like Clint Eastwood who always had to saunter across town to get a shave and a bath, and of course to shoot a few men who didn’t like the way he looked. I romanced about it, but it was never required. Not even once. It wasn’t that I was packing, but still, my cowboy boots had the romantic feeling required for such a scene, my pants were as dusty as Clint’s ever were.

I always had a lover waiting for me though. That much I did have in common. The lovers were magnetic at the worst of times. I had that sort of charm, and I hung around the right places – possibly by design. I had that loose charm and fresh stubble that fit the part. Walking stereotype.

IX

She would always come over and turn a chair backwards to chat with me a while; the rest of the joint fully satisfied. I knew she eyed up that seat the minute I walked into the joint. You could tell with these kind of girls. That nervous chatter about their bottom lip as they sat in casual cool. I always wanted to ask her if there was something more on her mind, but always told myself this dusty saloon wasn’t the place. My mind was always elsewhere anyways. I knew what I wanted.

I’d make up little scenes as my eyes would get distracted by a noise out of place. I’d watch as drunken fools would fiddle around in a stupor with their own thoughts and sadness. I’d watch as young couples would come in feeling the same romance I’d once felt in such an intimate place, sitting deep within the booths. I’d watch as businessmen would walk in with out of town clients looking for something to loosen the tie (and no doubt signature). I’d lose myself in their little romances. I’d watch them as they made little touches and laugh at small talk jokes. I always felt that my deep soul was much more conscious than theirs, staring out from the beaten corners of my favorite haunt, walnut filling my soul with history.

[note: to read full epic follow dragging left wing]

Dragging Left Wing | Chapter I (day 922)

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I

[and from here I crawled out into hands of memories, settling my mind on the truth machine that worked, grinding and sharing my thoughts with light I didn’t want to see]

I was callused from pains palm, a short smile that curtseyed like a smart little girl auditioning for the lead in this years high school musical. But my fever wasn’t juvenile. My fever had the whiskers of a great old wool-cardigan-wearing bespectacled grey-haired rocking-chair blues man. Stretching in the dark rays of a smoke filled saloon.

[I always wonder what happened in those old saloons as dusty rovers would sit amongst dirty city folk with nothing but sincere silence to fold the spaces between then and now]

Tonight bid me no exception. My hands were cold and the condensation stared at me through grace’s old left shoe; the mark of a vain attempt to pluralize a bygone romantic history with dots dotting and buzzards and cowboys shouting yippy-yi-kai-yai. Yippy-mother-fucking-kai-yai. It echoed through my mind and around the rim and stirred the bricks soaking in the toxic tumbler tonic.

II

Footsteps echoed on my heart’s inner recesses [those dark spaces with lifelines directly connecting my dick to my brain], and I looked up to see what stretched before my eyes towards the skies and held my breath as I began to accept the steps I did not control, nor did I expect to know for I was but a stranger.

[what life that I did live, galloping here and there in search of reason and mystery and a place to eat my dinner with warm socks and a soft hearted woman wearing a checkered apron, and kids filling up the silent spaces that ran around the walls and raw vegetables]

[did I behold the majesty that I had so long sought?]

Flush faced and affectionately asking if she could be the one to dangle my sorrows in front of the dogs chops, to mince that meat so delicately a surgeons needle would hardly Frankenstein this wanton heart of mine. Who was I to let this poor damosel tarry there like a bird on a wire? Hardly a minute the mood I wade in expresses such distaste, so I stood to my full height, smiled my deepest smile [yet did I know the deepest sorrow spoken from mine eyes], and bid the dark haired blood-hound to sit with me a while.

III

Here I was, a confident chap, merely seeking deep within – wallowing if you will – to no particular evil that could readily dance upon my tainted tongue. But such a foe that it could be was easily scared away, for in it’s terror – which it could see – was all that met the mind. But not, just see! Oh lordy me! It was more than my racing heart could ever manage to conjure. With those deep eyes, so wild and high, so eager for the punchline. Where my first glance had hastily missed, my senses soon repaired, it was aroma – so sincere – it took me by surprise; I was just some sullen eyes, awaiting times dear romantic fate.

[what focused on my brain just then was recounted by all men; so vivid was this memory it nearly knocked me back, for I was not some phony fiend, some mocking jack disgrace. I held with me a rabbits foot, a good luck charm to pace my heart and keep it here in check, to keep my mind from going aloof awaiting this as future]

Could you feel me as I felt you, could you smell me as I smelled your soul come wafting to my heart? Did you accept, nay, did you propose this gravity as much as I had willed it so? Did your soul reach out and mingle now with my strings reaching towards your being sitting there eloquently?

[and with this I lost the senses of my reason and logic. I lost my ability to recount my tales, and verbs I sling so well. I lost my thoughts that had carried me to this smoke filled saloon]

[note: to read full epic follow dragging left wing]