A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-*****, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands -- my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could HEAR;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a haunch what the music meant . . . hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true --
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, -- the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to ****, to **** . . . then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a ****;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "*****", and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two --
The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke -- was the lady that's known as Lou.

© 2011 (by Jim Sularz)
(The true tale of Frank Eaton – “Pistol Pete”)

At the headwaters of the Red Woods branch,
near a gentle ***** on a dusty trail.
On an iron gate, at the Twin Mounds cemetery,
a bouquet of dry sunflowers flail.

In a grave, still stirs, is a father’s heart,
that beats now to avenge his death.
Six times, murdered by cold blooded killers,
six men branded for a son’s revenge ….

Rye whiskey and cards, they rode fast and hard,
the four Campseys and the Ferbers.
With malicious intent, they were all Hell bent
to commit a loving father’s ******.

When the gunsmoke had cleared, all their faces were seared,
in the bleeding soul of a grieving son.
Ain’t nothin’ worse, than a father’s curse,
to fill a boy with brimstone and Hell fire!

Young Eaton yearned and soon would learn,
the fine art of slinging lead.
Why, he could shoot the wings off a buzzin’ horsefly,
from twenty paces, lickety split!

Slightly crossed eyed, Frank had a hog-killin’ time,
at a Fort Gibson shootin’ match.
Upside down, straight-on and leanin’ backwards,
he out-shot every expert in pistol class.

By day’s end when the scores were tallied,
Frank meant to prove at that shootin’ meet.
That he would claim the name of the truest gun,
and they dubbed him - “Pistol Pete.”

In fact, Pistol Pete was half boy, half bloodhound,
a wild-cat with two 45’s strapped on.
In District Cooweescoowee - bar none,
he was the fastest shot around!

Pistol Pete knew his dreaded duty had now arrived,
to hunt down those who killed his Pa.
He vowed those varmints would never see,
a necktie party, a court of law.

Where a man is known by his buckskin totem,
in hallowed Cherokee land.
There, frontier justice and Native pride,
help deal a swift and heavy hand.

Pete was quick on the trail of a killer,
just south of Webber’s Falls.
Shannon Champsey was a cattle rustler,
a horse thief, and a scurvy dog!

Pete ponied up and held his shot,
to let Shannon first make a move.
The next time he’d blinked, would be Shannon’s last,
to Hell he’d make his home.

With snarlin’ teeth and spittin’ venom,
Pete struck fast like a rattlesnake.
Two bullets to the chest in rapid fire,
was Shannon’s last breath he’d partake.

Pete galloped away, hot on the next trail,
left Shannon there for a vulture's meal.
Notched his guns, below a moon chasing sun,
and one wound to his soul congealed.

There’s a saying out West, know by gunslingers best,
that’ll deep six you in a knotty pine casket.
One you should never forget, lest you end up stone dead,
“There’s always a man – just a shade faster.”

Doc Ferber was next to feel Pete’s hot lead,
“Fill your hand, you *******!”
With little remorse, Pete shot him clear off his horse,
left him gunned down in a shallow ditch.

After getting reports, Pete headed North,
to where John Ferber hunkered down.
A Missouri corner, in McDonald County,
filled with Bible thumpers in a sinner’s town.

Pete rode five hundred miles to shoot that snake,
with two notches, he welcomed a third.
He carried his cursed ball and chains,
to **** a man, he swore with words.

But John Ferber was plastered, and he didn’t quite master,
deuces wild, soiled doves and hard drinkin’.
Someone else would beat Pete, the day before they’d meet,
sending John slingin’ hash in Hell’s kitchen.

There’s a night rider without a father,
under a curse to settle a score.
In all, six murderous desperados,
Three men dead - now, three men more ….

Pistol Pete was now pushin’ seventeen,
just a young pup, but no tenderfoot.
With two men in the lead, he was quick on his steed,
to **** two brothers who killed his kin.

Pete rode up to their fence, with a friendly countenance,
spoke with Jonce Campsey, but asked for Jim.
“There’s a message from Doc, that you both need to hear,”
Pete readied his hands – both guns were cocked!

Pete continued in discourse, and got off his horse.
all the while in an act of pretense.
Jim came to the door and Pete read them the score,
and shot them both dead in self-defense.

With the help of the law, they verified Pete’s call,
then gathered any loot they found.
Laid Jim and Jonce out, in their rustic log house,
and burnt them both and the house to the ground.

Might have seemed kind of callous, but weren’t done in malice,
that those boys were burnt instead of swingin’.
They just sent them to Hell, sizzlin’ medium well,
besides, it “saved them a lot of diggin’.”

There was one man to go, he’d be the last to know,
that a hex is an awful thing.
That a young boy would grow, with a curse in tow,
to **** a man, was still a sin.

Pete garnered his will, with the best of his skills,
to take on the last of the Campsey brothers.
It would be three to one, Wiley and two paid guns,
Pete knew his odds were slim and he shuddered.

At nearly twenty-one, Pete knew he may have out-run,
his luck as the fastest gun.
This would be the ultimate test of his shootin’ finesse,
only a fool would stay to be outgunned.

But Pistol Pete weren’t no liver lilly,
and he loaded up his 45’s.
He rode into town with steely nerves,
maybe no one, would come out alive!

Pete knocked through that swingin’ bar-room door,
Wiley stood there with a possum eating grin.
He said, “Hey there kid, who the Hell are you?”
and Pete shouted, “Frank Eaton! You killed my kin!”

All four men drew quick, with guns a’ blazing,
Wiley got plugged first from two 45’s.
The bar-room crowd dispersed in a wild stampede,
everywhere, ricochetin’ slugs whizzed by!

When the shootin’ had stopped, there was just one man standin’
all four men got plugged, includin’ Pete.
But only a shot-up boy rode out of town that day,
and a Father’s curse, that played out complete –
was a bitter mistress to bury….

At the headwaters of the Red Woods Branch,
near a gentle ***** on a dusty trail.
On an iron gate, at the Twin Mounds cemetery,
a bouquet of morning glories flail.

In a grave, still deep, is a father’s heart,
that lays quiet in a peaceful sleep.
And six men dead, who now burn instead,
compliments of Pistol Pete!

Walking among
The mighty forest trees
I feel something calling out to me
As I draw closer I see a man
Dressed in traditional buckskin
As I watch him
He moves his hand
As if wanting me to join him
Beside the fire.

I walk forward slowly
As if in awe of this man
As he speaks
I watch the flames dance
To his words
He spoke of a time
Where buffalo ran free
Across the plains
Peaceful plains
That rolled in the winds.

He spoke of a man
Who had a warrior spirit
He was the son of a mighty chief
He was devoted to his tribe
He sacrificed himself to protect them

I saw images of this warrior
In my mind as the flames
Entranced me with its
Hypnotic dance

This man in the flames
Did not look like the man
Who was speaking
It was as if this image
Was nestled in my heart
For there he stood
A man proud
And tall
With the spirit of a warrior

When the story was told
The storyteller smiled
"You have found your Spirit Warrior...."

He turned
And walking away
He disappeared
What was he
A ghost?
A spirit guide?
But I did
Find him
My Spirit Warrior.

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-*****, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;

With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, so the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands —
my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars?  
Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;

For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love —
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through —
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to ****, to **** ... then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a ****;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "*****," and I'm not denying it's so.

I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —
The woman that kissed him and — pinched his poke — was the lady that's known as Lou.

HUMAN HISTORY 2: LET'S DANCE
(A few words of acknowledgement: While these are my ideas and thoughts, I drew heavily on the story of 'Waterlily', written by Ella Cara Deloria. The discussion between the two Sioux women described below are drawn from this book. Her book beautifully details the life of 2 Dakota Sioux women and with them the customs, beliefs and beauty of the Dakota Sioux people. I am deeply in her debt.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Let's dance.
Lets dance.
Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.'
-D. Bowie


I.
'Hao, Kola!'
'Hao, Kola!'
Greetings between two
darkly tanned men, black hair
long and waving erratically in the wind,
their deep black eyes smile
and embrace these two warrior friends.
'Hao, Kola!'

II.
Out in the open prairie,
under an intense blue sky,
a few sharply white clouds
float in contrast against it;
two Peoples drew towards
each other for a ceremonial sing,
as was customary before the Great Sun Dance.

Ill.
'Hokahe'. 'Hokahe'.
'Hokahe'. 'Hokahe'.
Dakotas and Omahas meet.'
Hokahe' floats on the fresh morning breeze.
Colorful war standards wave and
flirt about gracefully.
The Omahas have come to sing.
The Omahas, proud, magnificently bold.
The Omahas, self assured in painted red face,
wearing heavily fringed buckskin white,
brilliantly adorned.
With war standards and lances held high,
the Omahas were a breath taking sight.
As there on the prairie's lush green grass
Omahas greet Dakotas with ceremonial song.

IV.
Two Dakota women overheard talking:
Blue Bird: 'You met them?! What are
white people really like?
Are they gentle, kind, as their
skin would imply?'
Smiling One: 'No, they are very hard, very
stern and dull towards each
other. They pass each other without
recognition. Very unmannerly.'
Blue Bird: 'And what about the children?
How do they play?'
Smiling One: 'Oh, this is so sad I would
say. I don't understand the
reasoning behind their ways.
These people actually detest
their children. You should see
them; slapping their little one's
faces and lashing their poor little
buttocks to make them cry!
Yelling and screaming at them
anytime of the day. I have never
seen children treated this way!!'
Blue Bird: Deep in thought, hugs little
Water Lily. She feels sick with
sympathy for these unknown
children. Only crazy people
teach their children like this.
What makes white people act so crazy?

V.
The Sun Dance time has arrived.
All the different Peoples, Tribes.
The Dakota, Teton, Omaha
make good on their vows
to the Great Spirits,
renew the hopes of their families
for peace and plenty from the land.
And they danced.
Looking straight into the sun,
because they knew it was what made them one
with the world and each other.
And they danced.
Time itself was lost in the sun
and new life was begun.
And they danced.
Danced around and sacrificed on
the clean cut pole,
blessed and made holy
just for this ceremony.
And they danced.
Till the sun was thrice Earth eaten
and moon time rose full in the sky.
But now on a different scene
and a People from so long ago,
who in their naked skin,
danced and howled at the moon.
Howled at the dead and the living.
Howled and danced,
danced and howled cause they were human.

VI.
Alone,
orbiting on this blue-toned Earth
I want to ask:
When will we, today’s humans dance?
Dance in global community?
Dance on the lush green grassy plains?
Dance on high hillsides, howling at a full, lush moon?

VII
'Let's dance.
Let's dance.
Put on your red shoes and dance the blues...'

~~written 10.1.98~~

He was baptized in whiskey
and gunsmoke aroma
Took up with a Cherokee woman
Quite friskey
Down in the Territory of Oklahoma
Tired of one too many killings
He took his side iron off
Wrapped it in its holster folded
Inside a gun oiled rag
Replaced it with his Mother's Bible
From within his saddle bag
Listened to that smart Indian woman
Who said he'd hung around the Territory
Too long
And if we don't skeedaddle
You'll be hangin' longer than you want
Smartest woman he'd ever known
She'd heard there's no law or religion
West of the Pecos and beyond
So they headed out to Texas
To preach the gospel to outlaws
****** and poor Mexican Catholics
Wrote off the Oklahoma Territory Baptists
Whose thick hides hide drunken sinners
Ridin' hard and fast her buckskin skirt
Above her thighs
Ridin' with a winner
Dark hair flowing behind
Ridin' hard to in his sight keep her
Such beauty that could stir the
***** and mind
Of even an old saddle preacher

r

ebbing tides
muted shadows sketched in sand
a sculpted archive of footprints and wind
crashing ocean’s hypnotic slow motion
rolling onto the beach
rushing white froth washing forth and back
renewing the smoothness with salty scrubbing bubbles
the setting full moon shines bright
projecting her power’s peak
reflecting horizontal streaks of crackling blue electricity
rippling and running
riding atop the cresting waves
pounding surf as conduit
completing the circuit on shore
empowering the Ancients' resurrection
in the rising midnight mists
mirage-like vaporous images charge
clearly visible beneath her sweeping silvery veil
buckskin **** cloths, eagle claws and feathers
indigenous people stepping rhythmically in a circle
feint sounds of chanting and a drum-like heart beat
a dance for the ages
seeking favor and protection
rituals and ceremonies
keeping the wolves at bay
celebrating the crows’ return
or a bountiful harvest
as they have for millennia
when the moon falls over earth’s edge
the dancers dissipate
retreating like sand *****
awaiting the next full moon.

brewing potion with ritual
reciting chants, merely verbal
niching these little caviar
a mixture of gravitas and war

such ladle so long enough to combine
a ******'s blood with a spoon of wine
perhaps adding a buckskin would suffice
this hellcat's hellacious bliss

a bushel of a misogynist's intestine,
must not forget to hitch gobs of sharks fin,
augment a pair of an old man's sight
then smatter the hogs' teeth bite

sing song this dark lullaby
you ought to hear plead and cry
smell and smear this fatal brew
any life it shall take and shoo

death will come and it will reign
blood will begrime and it will stain
thoroughly toting the daring deathly hex
seeking a prey who must be next

Tonight is for reflection.
Not the kind found in a mirror.  
Which of course I have none.  Mores the pity.  I would love to see how splendid I look in my new shirt with French lace and ruffles.  Under my sapphire blue waist coat and buckskin riding breeches.  All I can clearly see full of, would be my boots.  The softest leather and a shine to see ones reflection in.  Sigh, But not mine.

Where was I.. Ah yes,  I was waxing philosophical.
One can never be too busy to better ones self.  Thus
my new clothes.

Let's see...reflection.  

While looking back upon my long lived life as the Prince Of Darkness.  I realize, I have been selfish.  Not
once have I invited others to my humble home.  Not once have I hosted a party.  Not once have I allowed others to witness my grandeur.  

Tonight, I vow to remedy that.  I will have a party.  One to outdo all the others which I have had the privilege to crash.  

Hmm.  Perhaps I should start a bit smaller.
A dinner party!
For the intimates of intimates.

Let me see.  Who to invite?

Reginald Wadsworth!  He's a jolly chap.  No.  He was a late night snack a few days ago.

Hortense Mayweather!  She is always in good humor and a fair conversationalist.  No.  She had the misfortune of crossing my path last month while I was woozy from battle blood loss.  A fight with a tresspasser left me a bit worse for wear.  But Hortence fixed me right up.

I've got it!  General Clayston!  He makes for such a fun curmudgeon.  Oh,  He died of old age.

Hmm........

Oh look!  The Carlstayton's are hosting a party tonight.

Looks like I will be dining out.

~Lord Kellington

And walking down the line,
And walking down the line,
Blood hot to fuel the limbs a-crying,
Struck not for rhythm, only rhyme,
Best for sighing
And dying in retreat.

And in my chest of pine,
A map rolled up so thin,
Drawn wit with all the twists of time,
Stray shores lit up by ocean-shine,
Uniquely won,
But smudged with soot.

Clouds from the soil – a sign!
This little mist of mine,
Will yearn to chuck its static tine
Among the tatters and the lint
That settled in my chest of pine,
a boneyard relic dank and bare
which homely cries
A ravaged syncopation twice.

And veering from the line,
And steering from my way,
A day or two to stay away
From bays of beasts and feasts of lice

and many a morsel,
lost to vermin that squirm
and grow and bite my
leg bleeds green;

Known to knaves that
waved grave flails and scattered ****,
that ****** its own to Hell,
where overdue a longish spell sent
Falling from place to grace
that face that drew a thousand beads of
albatross tears, of murky reeds
and cheating, stinking, reeking,
absolute, terrible,
miserable,
mistakes

Fall in line!

And burps another Rhine,
Boiled quaint in bogs of brine,
That pickles crisp the limp old rind
Of cogs and bands my chests of pine,
Buckskin drying all the time,
******* coke, doing lines,
tonguing chic,
pearly swine,
concede a side
I’ll never find.

West Horizon Ridge*
   or *sage and passing lights

I return to where I've always been.

This home will stay remembered
through being turned, closed, and reclothed.
It's silvery smell and glassy echo are well set-in
and still shudder me, thinly, again and again.

A sticky swell of it's air swims in my lungs
as I enjoy this breath of ghosts.
Here, such joy had flashed and dimmed, vivid blue
like paperclip antenna picture tubes.

Ripostes - we're obsessed, an unsynced incessant choir.
I decide I'm flush with ink and should retire.

      Against cushions crush,
      the sway-back boy who raised me
      is phased in the yawning fog of sleep,
      cheek grazed by a dog's red maw,
      breath drawn through this alloy heap
      of buckskin and blush
      and rest employed if only for a moment.

      His troubles flog him, hurried eyes creased with claret
      for want and worry and the weight of ceaseless waylay.
      My perpetual prologue,
      our voices and faces framed as plain analogs
      and I'm never apart from him this way.

      I always want to protect my heroes,
      to be a fount of affection and human home,
      to repay the blown doors closed
      and sores sewn away.

I disembark the departed portrait and dispatch the lights,
the acquainted old entry grieves quietly for life.

Fatigued, I walk down and sink, haunted,
into the faded tracks of our tires,
gray-black and cracked but relieved.
Silently swing the gates, blue-green and gaunt,
my growing-up gradually heaved,

flaunting the old sass of my almost-everythings.
I conspire to return where, or more how, I belong.
The pavement's slick in the rain,
flickering in the sage and passing lights
that say my spirit, sealed there, feels right.

My love for this memory is so honest and hurtfully aged,
how I hope so hard my heart will always break this way.

An Encounter on Muleshoe Bend

Chapter 1 – Meeting Mr. Russell
September 2015.
Walking past the upper geyser basin, I stop for a moment to watch the rising sun give way to a buttermilk sky. Its late Fall in Yellowstone and I’m headed to the Madison River to wet a line before winter sets in.
My eyes scan the field dotted with cow elk and the ever elusive bull over looking his harem from the cover of a quaking aspen forest. He keeps a close eye on me as I cross the field towards the river. The cows continue to graze without moving and my eyes are now focused on a tree that’s felled across the Firehole River. I see what appears to be a person straddling the fallen tree that extends over the entire width of the river.
As I move closer to the river my thoughts are confirmed as I see a man sitting on the fallen tree with one leg propped upon a branch right there in the middle of the river. His horse, grazed in the adjacent field. His shoulder length hair and beard were snow white; he was dressed in buckskin fringed pants and buckskin shirt and wore a wonderful hat that had a turkey feather stuck in on an angle.  I cupped my hands around my mouth and called out to him, “Hey old timer good morning to ya”.
He immediately shouts back “Good day to you sir and I’m no **** old timer”!
I walked hesitantly to the edge of river as he puffed on his clay pipe and said to him “Hey, ah, sorry if I offended you, I certainly didn’t mean to be disrespectful”.
“Make no never mind of that” he replied.
I climbed out on the tree next to him and extended my right hand,  “Hi my names Tom Murphy”.
He kind of half heartedly shook my hand answering “My names Osborne, Osborne Russell”.
I said “Well Mr. Russell it’s a pleasure to meet you”. “This is one hell of a view you have from this tree”.
He said “Well I’ve been coming to this very spot for over 150 years!
“150 years” I exclaimed, “How old are you” I asked.
He acted he like didn’t even hear me. He looked at me with these piercing blue eyes and asked “What’s your business up here son”.
“Well I hope to catch a few trout today sir and you’re welcome to join me if you like”.
“OK he said, I suppose I should keep an eye on you just in case we run into those ornery Nez Pierce Indians”.
I kind of chuckle to myself and say “Ok Mr. Russell, If I’m going to catch any fish this morning we better get a move on”.

END CHAPTER ONE

She wears a mask of steel around her face,
That one can never break,
She stashes her feelings behind her smile,
But to discover them would be worthwhile,
She seems fine on the outside,
While she pushes her emotions aside
Onto the platter of feelings that drowns
Beside the superficial wearing crown,
When she just wants to scream
This isn’t the real me

This mask developed over time
From the harsh words she was forced to mime,
The feelings that she had within,
Came about her thick buckskin
No longer can the feelings break through
Bittersweet tears swept away as her spirit bid adieu

- a.g.

From his coronet, through his tendons and right up to his crest
When you looked at his withers you could see he was best
His tail was magnificent and hung past his hock
He was blessed with three white ones and a single black sock.

The horse was a Crioulo that had come from Uruguay
I fell for the majesty of this horse I would buy
He was the colour of buckskin with a black tail and mane
And the dun gene line backed him with a long thin black stain.

He stood fifteen hands and he ran like a king
Astride him made me want to just burst out and sing
I raced over fields and I took him over fence
He knew what I asked of him, he had so much sense.

I loved him for thirty fours years from a colt
And when he took his last breath it gave me a jolt
But I’ll never forget Samson, for that was his name
He let me ride on him but he was only ‘so’ tame.

©Joe Wilson – They only let you tame them so much…2014

I walk
head down through the bitter cold
only a light buckskin for warmth
there is little food
and no time for rest

I am near the front
no idea how many are lost
the old, the sick
the little ones

the memory of these days
along the trail of tears
will die
like the burning embers of a once mighty fire

these horrors will not be spoken
in the teachings of those whose greed
and cold hearts
outweighed their compassion
whose concrete jungles mar
the once majestic landscape

the years of separation grows
but the atrocities shall never be vanquished
in the realm of the spirit world
and those who initiated the culling
pay their penance
and walk the trail for eternity

I looked at the circle
And it was a square.

Friendly emotions
Are divisible by small numbers,
But crowds give me a bad taste.

I click the metal counter,
I’m at 26 questions starting with “why”,
And my memory
Is a dish of expired food in the fridge.

A figure of many
Futures
Stands at my front door,
But I don’t answer
To unexpected guests,
And my mailbox is a
Pocket of regret.

My attempts like dirt on buckskin,
But the moon
And sun
Both know the time I put in.

If only they could speak for me.

When the life inside my head
Infiltrates the life that others see,
I am the servant to emotion.
I am the sleeping circus lion behind iron.

When others see the best in me,
It’s unrequited.
How can we reside in a place we’re uninvited?
And we pretend we like to fight
For the issues we birth.
The hearse we take turns driving to the cliff,
To **** it again.

enwombed
among the
sullen pine
gritty
grainy
grungy
with
past friends
of mine
here we stand
where once
we fell
to
buckskin glove
and
pitchfork tine
on
needled duff
drunk
on
honey wine
alone now
among the
sullen pine
entombed