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preservationman Feb 2022
Once upon a time
No comfort combined
A bus was the start being the Stagecoach
But the Stagecoach doesn’t get my vote
There was Dust that made any traveler choke
Hilly Frontier
Are we there yet in Preserver?
Rainy Days and Nights during violet Thunderstorms
Lightning flash
Stuck in a stagecoach with no dash
However, did I mention how Indians would stagecoach attack
Perhaps John Wayne would fit this track
However, you can history back in fact
Stagecoach travel through the countryside
It did wonders on one’s backside
From destination to destination
Stagecoach travel for me would be a hesitation
Passengers had to take in the bumps
Lead me to the next Saloon
I hope I arrive soon
There were times the stagecoach was a praying event
Now look where time went
This is stagecoach 101 I present
George Krokos Dec 2010
Aborigines and kangaroos
boomerangs and didjeridoos.
Leafy gum tree branch and koala bear
black stump in the middle of nowhere.
Jolly swagman camped by a billabong
in 'Waltzing Matilda' a favourite song.
The wild brumbies roaming free in the outback
a scruffy hobo living alone in a country shack.
Aboriginal myths called their dreamtime
the native Australians regard as sublime.
Ring-tailed possum and wombat
aussie bloke wearing akubra hat.
Alice Springs and Ayers Rock
outback stations and livestock.
Ned Kelly bushranger and his law brushes
the Eureka stockade during the gold rushes.
Laughing kookaburra and old man emu
platypus swimming in underwater view.
Banjo Patterson’s poem ‘The Man from Snowy River’
who went riding down mountain side without a quiver.
Surfers paradise and the Great Barrier reef
sixties rock ‘n roll legend: Johnny O’Keefe.
Anzac marches and the land of the Southern cross
old Cobb & Co. stagecoach used to travel across.
Glorious summer sunshine and winter rains
severe country drought and the desert plains.
Eucalyptus scent and Tea-tree oil
good health remedies from the soil.
Fresh water yabbies and the witchety grub
all make good tucker in the bush or scrub.
Crocodiles in the Kakadu national park
Burrumundi and the great white shark.
Sydney harbour bridge and the Opera House
Daintree rain forest and the kangaroo mouse.
Sheep wool farming and old shearing sheds
Melbourne Cup horse race for thoroughbreds.
Riverboat cruising up and down the Murray
passing border country towns not in a hurry.
Cradle mountain and the Tasmanian Devil
saying ‘fair dinkum’ means it’s on the level.
AFL rules football and big crowds at the MCG
playing one day cricket there is exciting to see.
The Fitzroy Gardens and Captain Cook’s cottage
are there for all to see as symbols of our heritage.
The Twelve Apostles standing along a rugged stretch of coast
a Ninety-Mile beach is something about which we can also boast.
The Glass House mountains are a sight to see and even to climb
by those who consider themselves fit enough and in their prime.
The great Australian Bight and the road on the Nullarbor plain
is a great feat to drive across and be able to come back again.
The local native wild dog known by name as the Dingo
has nothing to do with a game people play called Bingo.
There’s also a game called two-up that some people play
by which they gamble most of their weeks wages away.
Luna Park in St.Kilda and the annual Royal Melbourne Show
are places where you can take the kids to have fun people know.
There’s the local pub where you can go and have a drink with your mates
and is what many do all day long having a few too many in all the States.
This great southern land of Australia has so much to see and to offer
it would be a ****** shame if one didn’t give a **** or was a scoffer.
_________
Private Collection - written in 2002
Shaun Meehan Nov 2014
imagined moment vivid
split second prior scythe’s felling contact—
panic, fear gripped soul, constriction
shadowing hand clutched chest
the final occurrence
my last breath

a life’s span of years
the reaper’s patient approach
confident encroach, task assigned
above reproach, his grim stagecoach
my taxi toward mystery forward

the grind of wood spoke wheels amidst
drop of steady hoof against
an astral road cobble stone
the anthem of death performed
by angel orchestra the
conductor my heart ceasing beat

what memory does surface
allowing in moment to bask as
my life to fade?

sons, opportunity misspent
a wife, her caring consideration unmet
parents, who lack receipt of admiration
the instance impossible to own preparation

to say that which ought be said
a careful avoidance of things that not
rather plead for one last word
a beggar to show heart’s comprise
adoration without question at
time of demise

love, more than a hug
but time spent
love for them—taught shown felt
love and its spread
upon which would serve
death’s beautiful bed

to take the hand of His angel
rather the reaper to dread
a confident smile knowing
in arms their embrace
will be felt once again
Deadwood Haiku Apr 2015
who i intend to
**** don't ride stagecoach 'cause it
makes her ******' puke
Deadwood haiku
Joe Cottonwood Nov 2017
Noon, I’m next in line behind an old man.
“I want to withdraw fourteen dollars,” he says.
The teller, a young woman with a soft sweater, says
“There’s only—let me check—yes—fifty-two cents.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She tilts her head. “Sorry.”
The sorrow is genuine.
He wears a pinstripe suit, frayed,
wafting an odor of smoke and earth.
A smartly folded handkerchief, breast pocket,
has a dark stain. His silver beard
is neatly trimmed.

On one wall above the safe is a giant
mural of teamsters driving a stagecoach.
The man says, “There might be—”
“No. It’s always the same.”
For a moment he closes his eyes,
a slow blink while indignities of a lifetime pass.
Without a word, the young woman slides a sandwich
over the countertop through the teller window.
“Blessings on you,” the man says with a nod,  
and he walks away with a limp.

I cash my check, a big one
from three days of messy labor
for a matron of the horsey set.
“He lives by the creek,” the teller says
without my asking. “Under a bridge.”
Outside the bank, in the parking lot of glistening cars,
I look around for the pinstripe suit, the silver beard.
I might offer the man something.
He might refuse to take it.
Anyway, no matter:
he has disappeared like the last stagecoach.
Only the blessing remains.
First published in MOON magazine July 2017
Tommy Johnson Jun 2014
I remember it well
As if it were yesterday
We geared up and set sail
And embarked upon unfamiliar waves

It was I captaining the vessel
With One-eyed Sven my quarter master
He could cut throats and roll pretzels
His weapon of choice was his bow caster

This wasn't a mission of plundering
That alone left the crew in a state of wondering
No, we weren't looking for buried treasure
But for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather

My first mate Mr. Obanion said to me
"Captain are we off course?"
Then my boatswain , Wiley asked sheepishly
"Aren't we going for *** and ******?"

I looked them in the eye at the same time
"Gentlemen, this ship is headed to Dublin"
"We're going to see a good friend of mine"
"Now get back to your swabbing and scrubbing"

This was an order of business not some sort of cruise
I'm sailing with a ship of one track minded fools
We didn't set out on a vacation of leisure
Were on the hunt for sheep skin seat covers and Scandinavian leather

I did not mean to keep them in the dark
But they would think less of me
I needed these things
For the women I married

You see we'd been on the rocks
And I know she wanted these items
So I went over the sea with a fine tooth comb
Until I had finally found them

My men had sailed endlessly for months
They were worn down and ragged
Waterlogged and exhausted
While I always came up empty handed

But I had to save my marriage
Salvage my relationship
I knew it would work
If I gave my love these gifts

We reached the golden, calling shore
Of the beautiful Dublin
From the River Liffey and headed north
My friend Seamus let me come in

I came out shaking his hand
I was satisfied with my purchase
Until I was questioned by my men
What it was we came for in our searches

I had to show them, I was under scrutiny
I pulled out two stagecoach seat covers and a pair of pants
They were enraged and called mutiny
They blindfolded me and bound my hands

Now I'm marooned on some unmapped island
And I see my ship riding that horizon
This will sadden my wife, oh how it will upset her
She will never receive her sheep skin seat covers or her Scandinavian leather
Round and round the wheel’s spun
Here and there your time has come
In and out your lights have gone
Out and about to forget what’s going on
Scream and shout into the barrel of your gun
Come on you *****, you can’t do this wrong
Walkin out don’t seem so hard now

Easy going’s a myth that’s over preached, that’s my ******* problem...
Or maybe it’s that I depend on other people to solve them.

I’ve broken all the legs on which I used to stand
No more shoulders to cry on, and no one holding my hand
I fall, I cry, I swear, I’ve tried, no matter what I do, I’m just barely getting by.
I’m tired ofliving life one day at a time, fighting every day in order to survive.
I have to make it on my own.

Order’s tall, without law, just a lie.
Time just flies by, we fall in love alone and knock the hourglass on its side.


I’m staring down the medicine cabinet menu trying to pick the perfect dish.
I'm done playing dumb, matter of fact, I'm just plain done.
I’ve given you more chances than losing the lottery hon’
So zip your lips, you should be used to it, the silence is what tore us apart to begin with
Zip your lips, take your trip, and figure out how to make the pieces fit.

This guilt in my head and this weight on my back is making me crawl past the finish line and
Into another trap, Each time that I pass, I’m still behind another lap.

They say I think too much and then I lose touch.
It’s either stay on the couch or lean on a crutch.
My life revolves around daily brain damages.
They say the best things can only come out of the darkest passages.
Lather, rinse, repeat the cycle, I’d rather not cheat and compete with these savages.

You’re nothing I haven’t seen before, the fact of the matter is
We are all just someone else’s recycled garbage

I’m sick of livin’ every day with one foot bout to step into another’s grave.
I’m too tired to keep hold of these stagecoach reigns, how the hell am I to conduct 12 runaway trains?
Don’t tell me to watch out when you yourself don’t have an ounce of strength
Depending on pretending that tomorrow will be a brighter day
The grass is never greener, get off my ***, and stay out  my way
Head to head, face to face, fight and compete to defend your title belt of last place

I can’t wait for the day that nothing feels the same as every yesterday until then I’ll just repeat and repeat all the things that I hate. 

 
I am the angel and the devil atop your shoulders.
I give and I take in the eye of the beholder.
I bend and I shake, each breath, sharper and shorter.
No start, no stop, just endless disorder.


Growing up just means that you’re getting older
The dark is getting lighter, and each day is feeling colder.

How absurd are the streets of this wretched city?
Common sense is a rarity to those who beg all for their pity.
Mercy me, oh I admit defeat, I was born to fail at making ends meet.
The scraps and the bones, the trashed and the filthy.
I’ll live on the edge attempting to make this home a reality.
But there’s no room in any ******* realty
For a man who contributes nothing incessantly,
Yet, continues to **** dry every hand that tries to feed.

Maybe there's something in the medicine cabinet that can set me free
Oh, why do I turn to the medicine cabinet every time I want something to eat?

It’s kickin' in now, I’m seeing things a lot clearer now that it's just about over.
Stranded at the crossroads, I made a deal that cost me two souls, one of which, I am not responsible for.
So, still my flawed remains stand there with no closure,
I signed the line and sold my time.
Now the best thing I can do is become an ***** donor.

Lesson learned a bit late, a penny shy, now the world’s a buck shorter
All you’ve left behind are half-written songs full of spite on your Dad’s old tape recorder

From everyone here at the daily grind news team, to those who shout biased headlines with ******* Meanings, we hope you have fun while it lasts, your shows cancelled next quarter.
This concludes our report on young lives growing shorter.
Before we sign off, here’s the final say from our most admonishing reporter:

You have no idea what it means to have something to scream about.
You’ve spent your whole life never shutting your ******* mouth
Tell me what you think of me, don’t tell your friends on the internet
You’ve bitten more than you can chew this time, no more free rides, it's time that you pay your rent.
If you're not the lord of this land,  then I'll be the one to decide how the rest of your life is spent.

You can start by choking on your pride as you attempt to swallow all your miserable times and past Regrets. Pay close attention, this is the last warning you’ll get.
Thoughts swirling about the mind of a man who's been over-medicated, under-appreciated, and has taken his own strength away by blaming everyone else. Desperately, he attempts to re-gain control over his own life.
Marieta Maglas Jun 2015
(Geraldine was walking on the deck while waiting nervously for Fredrick. Frederick appeared suddenly while speaking quickly and gesturing.)

''I've waited for you all day long to come up with fuel.''
''I went to buy charcoal, water and outdoor lamp oil.
At a crossroad, I saw a stage driver being so cruel
To whip his horses to run faster; the oil spilled on the soil.

He drove a stagecoach; my horse was frightened by the sound
And my trolley overturned. I had to come back to buy
Again three barrels of oil.'' ''That oil spilled on the ground, ''
Said Geraldine, ''the money has gone, and this is not a lie! ''

I don't ask you to tell me where you really spent the money
It makes no sense to ask you for the truth. Is she beautiful?
Did you have a good time? To wash laundry in public, honey,
You may bring her here. This way, you can be dutiful.''

''I love you, '' screamed Frederick, '' so, you think you're funny.''
''Well, I may be funny although I'm never stupid.''
He held her, ''I sold some jewels. Take the money.
I could lie to you, but you're the one. I'm down with Cupid.''


''Do you remember that man having a ring with a skull? ''
''You've met him in Constantinople, '' ''I've met him here, too.
He was in that stagecoach liking this way his horses to cull.''
He laughed saying, ''I'm a captain in search for my crew.''

''Frederick, I want to return home at Khadjibey.
Do you remember when we've met in the port and you
Gave me an emerald cut gold ring shining at the ray? ''
''I've asked you to marry me, '' ''I love you; you know it's true.''

''Then why do you want to turn back home? '' ''You know I'm scared.''
'' This is our chance. If we turn back in that unknown trading port
For slave markets, I will not survive; I'm not prepared
To ask the sanjak bey some protection and support.


I am Italian and I saw so many things.
I saw the terrible fate of those becoming galley-slaves,
Women enslaved being sexually abused, in sufferings,
But someone living in Khadjibey is a 'plough and a scythe.' ''

'' Is this artwork painted by Paolo de Matteis or not? ''
Asked Francesca coming to them. ''What are you doing here? ''
''We really like to admire that splendid island a lot.''
''Shall we offer them a string instruments' concert, Chiara dear? ''

(To be continued…)

Poem by Marieta Maglas
Marieta Maglas Aug 2015
(Erica went into her room to rest. Geraldine and Carla started to read the journal they had found in the box.)


He left England with a ship and sailed east until he reached
Portugal; then, he took a stagecoach and traveled to Venice.
He was in danger of highwaymen who couldn't be impeached.
His coach had a high speed, ‘cause those men could become a menace.


He had made a gold deposit at a goldsmith, who gave him
Some receipts to exchange them with money at the British bank.
Then, he traveled through Europe choosing those pathways which were dim.
There, he missed London and its air being restless and dank.



He achieved knowledge of the Europe major languages.
He was seemingly traveling at his own expense,
Covered, by his own account; in fact, he carried messages,
And any of his messages had an important sense.


He traveled as merchant bringing drugs, rare books, and some
Exotic commodities like pine nuts, pistachios, and coffee
From the Royal Exchange instead of waiting a false peace to come.
In London, his luxury shops looked like covered in toffee.



(In her room, Erica started to read the document written in the Russian language. It was one of the most fragrant, pleasant smell papers she ever had in her hands. The person owning that document was a Russian one living in London.)



This document was also a letter from the Surveyor
Of the Royal Exchange, to an Indian official asking
Him help to buy some new shops in India; the payer
Could reveal the understanding of the retail shopping.



(Geraldine continued to read from his journal written in the Russian language.)



The man described the luxury life of the British elite,
His grand house, which had been built in the rich west of London,
And his horse-drawn carriage used for rides on the main street.
He wanted lead pipes for his house as any rich Londoner.


(Erica continued to read the document.)



That paper had an annexed one about the gold needed
To help a noble lady forced to spend the rest of her life
As a penniless nun; her words about freedom were heeded.
Imprisoned as a nun, she was, in fact, an abandoned wife.




The gold was brought with a ship that should anchor in that place.
Ivan was the liaison with that man and had to take that gold
To pay the lady's freedom; tears appeared upon Erica’s face.
Ivan caused the deviation from the ship's course as he was told.




He didn't know that the carrack had been hunted by some pirates.
Erica realized that the merchant had died, but she
Did not know whether the gold had been stolen or not, those bandits
Were still around having the link letter; she fell down on her knees


To pray for her life; she understood that the ex-husband
Of that lady could torture them to death for having plotted
Against him; she prayed while needing to be many thousand
Miles away and while looking at the hill with olives dotted.



(Erica burned the document.)
(Geraldine became meditative and told Carla,)



''These treatises generate some ideas of magnificence
And splendor; the luxury is realized with the skilled
Workers and the specialized knowledge, '' ‘‘the extravagance
Of these books is declined by the wars, where the life is killed, ''



(Replied Carla. She continued,)



'' These wars bring the decline of retailing, the stagnation
Of building, and the disappearance of a real
Art market, '' ''They use all the methods to fight for their nation
On the waters to protect the land; their strife is a squeal, ''



(Replied Geraldine. Maya entered the room to invite them to dinner. She said that she had seen someone having two dogs and walking around. Suddenly, Geraldine said, ‘’ I think I give birth to my child now. I have a sharp pain. I’m so afraid! ’’)


(..To be continued.)

Poem by Marieta Maglas)
BILLYtheKidster Jul 2010
Back then it didn't matter who was right or wrong.
What mattered was who had the fastest gun.
The untamed Old West lived by a code back then. "I'll Die Before I Run."
An 18 year old boy wanders into town. All of the locals stare the young stranger down.
All of his instincts tell him to turn around, but he can't turn his back and run.
The youngster can't afford any fear. The kid's found himself much needed work here,
but the competition's greed is ruthless. That's why he wears a gun.
Young William Bonney was just another cowboy looking for work to earn an honest day's pay.
He rode into Lincoln County, New Mexico as a simple hired rancher's hand,
but he'd ride out to become a legend one day.
Today he's America's most famous bad boy, but he left us more legend than fact of all he did.
His legend continues to live on in stories, movies, books and song.
Who hasn't heard of BILLY the Kid?
BILLY the Kid's life of crime for many it seems
has been greatly exaggerated to the extremes.
He never robbed a bank, stagecoach or train.
He never harmed an innocent for pleasure or financial gain.
He was just a common stock thief. He'd steal horses and cattle
from corrupt, rich Cattle Barons who'd respond in ****** battle.
It was a lifestyle that Billy truly didn't desire,
but when your wanted by the law employers don't hire.
Yes he did **** but it was a justifiable sin.
If Billy hadn't killed them they would have killed him.
Some say he killed for vengeance but that was never his means to an end.
If he killed for anything it was for Justice for the ****** of loved ones and friends.
Many don't speak of or even know this, but back then this is what all who knew him saw.
Legally sworn Deputy William H Bonney, sworn to uphold the law.
Billy was once a bonified lawman with full authority to issue warrants and make arrests.
He could **** in the line of duty without fear of prosecution, imprisonment or arrest.
The Law Was Sworn First To The Lawman To Ultimately Serve And Protect.
Billy was one of many lawmen known as The Regulators.
They were law that Lincoln County would not soon forget.
Many today jump to the conclusion that Bonney was Billy's birth name.
He actually didn't begin to use the name Bonney until a few years before he was slain.
Where the name Bonney came from is still the unanswered question that continues to remain.
This issue alone has been known to drive historians insane.
Billy was a lad of many aliases. William Henry McCarty is believed to be his birth name.
Alias Henry McCarty, Alias Henry Antrim, Alias William Antrim Jr are all one and the same.
Kid Antrim was another alias that Billy became known to be.
His most common alias was simply The Kid.
Then one day suddenly he was William H Bonney and finally,
The Most Legendary Billy the Kid.
At the age of 12, legend says that he stabbed a man to death
because the man insulted his mother.
Legend also says that he killed a man for every year of his life.
It's been said that he was killed by a man once his friend.
Both were always seen hanging around with each other,
but it's also been said that The Kid was shot dead
because of his love for a woman that night.
Billy always fought to stay alive, when others would just accept their fate.
He did back then what he needed to do in order to survive.
It was **** or be killed if you dared to hesitate.
The Kid may have done some things that many can't justify.
Even so, his young life ended far too early to die.
Was he a victim of his time or was he truly the bad guy?
His entire truest to life story is about to unfold. Afterward you can decide.
mari Feb 2022
he always calls me by my given name
whenever he finds himself back in town;
mariela on the dotted line,
mari in the moonlight.
ella if he's feeling smug,
bunny when he's looking for God.
he knows my history is shaded with blue,
marred by narrowly-won home-front wars.
everything about me reminds him
of Heaven and sweet, honeyed beaches.
sandy cheeks from moonbathing, ****,
by clyde's stagecoach motel on the coast.
barefoot and manic, he tastes like sugar
and complements the *** on my tongue.
green-eyed with envy, but he's sweet
enough to make my mind grow hazy
with the lust of a woman gone mad from her fears.
he rolls through on the tail-end of a storm
and dizzies me until the dream ends
and i find he's left me only morning dew.
he tells me i'm an angel, lazily smoking
cigarettes while he lounges, gloomy, by the pool.
sunshine bikini singing sailor songs softly,
cool in my gold hoops dancing between
his open thighs, signaling gamine doom.
he's larger than life, starry-eyed,
reading me poetry against his olive chest.
i could die here, i know this, listening
to the gentle tune of his heartbeat.
he tells me he'll love me only until tomorrow,
but i'm not so sure that's the truth.
when the playdate ends,
when the sun dies slow,
when my love goes home
i'll awaken,

but not just yet.
i could do this for forever, trailer trash love of mine
Stagecoach trundled, rutting, wheels
Soily grasp, grabbing at the earthy recipe
Cart....horsing around the outdoorsiness
Ferris wheel spun, gathering passengers
To overlook the show ground, smattered
Four legged races, saddled with encumbents
Bobbing in display formation.  Far above
I caught sight of circular ribbons emblazoned
Lapels holding onto prize winners, suffering
The pin ***** jabbing at willing winners
Left foot first, hopscotch to the flap of tarpaulin
Billowing their precious overgrown greatness
Of perfect vegetalia, proud, excessive....of the
Dinner plate variety.  Don't touch their polished
Surface, they deliberately await photographic
Validation; future growers, challenging champion
Chompers, terrorising super-veggie heros
I wonder what becomes of former ground growers
Do they take a back stage bow? Uprooted with
Those of a lesser kind, jostling for saucepan space
With your eyes so grand and a rose in your hand
On board a mystery ship that I do not understand
When I see the moon rise above the land
I can see your eyes again.
Last night in a dream I met a roman queen
With a mask of gold and blue.
And I could not help but wonder and even kinda ponder
If the roman queen was you.
I never really showed when they laid you to rest
In the stone of early May.
Far passed a dozen trees in mud bending knees
To the gods wishing you would stay.
I once saw an angel with the glow of a lamp
She was lighting up a loansom hall.
And I saw her for awhile running with a smile
Past red lockers in the time of fall.
Today I saw a shield covering a field
Like a dead poets badge of grace.
Upon the ridge I saw this light
Turn radiance from night
And the glow was Samantha's face.
I had heard of her tomb one sad afternoon
It was a cast iron work of art.
Then I heard them close the lid and I ran away and hid
With hot swords drove through my heart.
I see you floating through the heavens passed the stars and the moon with you're hand on a green balloon.
With my eyes up to the sky I can not help but cry
The princess had left too soon.
I saw the crossing guard weeping very hard
Of the pain that was in the ground.
And then I saw him sleeping through the flood that was reaping with sweet spirits and their speaking sound.
I sat down and saw a wolf making his call
To the loved one he could not find.
Oh, beast I hear your sound Tiberius lost the crown
And your trumpet sounds just like mine.
Out of all of these ghosts my brain waves and hopes
For the drifting we all shall do.
And on the other side we look forward for a ride
On a stagecoach that will lead us to you.
When the rain goes away making blue skies from grey
You'll paint colors in the sky.
And we will ****** the color blue and a purple paintbrush too and make life from things that die.
I just hope that you know wherever you may go
That I'll always think of a girl.
There will be flowers all year long and a man who writes a song of a young lady who lit up the world.
It's 1969 in Lancaster where time is lame
where the stagecoach calls as
the bandage falls from
the legs of the clock,
where the face looks on in utter shock as
the tick tock bleeds its last.

Once when time was fast and the mornings flew
and we as kids knew what to do
with the leftovers dropped from the feast of the day,
heading on down to skinnydip in the bay and
catching the final splashings of rays from the sun,
racing through that tidal surge and the urge to run
forever
never entered our heads.

Sleep left me to bed down with the awkward nights,
puberty and the rites of man
where passages can twist and turn on
the long road to learn the
lessons in life.

And I enter again through the door of
wanting much more,not knowing
what wanting is waiting inside and ride
down the years, through jam doughnuts and
tears beside and alongside
the shadows which echo the laughs
of my youth.
Tryst Jun 2014
He was a brawned and ugly gun-slinger, and he came from the wild west;
He had the names of six dead Texan boys, tattoed on his chest;
His hat was 15 gallons tall, his long-coat midnight black;
He wore his holsters mighty high and he said his name was Jack.

He rode a palamino horse on the day he came to town;
Three deputies were in the street, and he shot those suckers down;
Dismounting by the sheriffs door, he hollered out a cry,
"Get yer no-good chicken *** outside, today yer gonna die."

The sheriff boldly stepped outside, a shotgun in his hand,
"You'd best be coming quiet son, or your life aint worth a ****."
Jack tipped his hat and curled his lip, he turned his head and spat,
"You shot my brother, sheriff, and yer gonna pay for that."

The sheriff paused to ponder, then he slowly shook his head,
"Your Jimmy robbed a stagecoach and he left the driver dead."
Jack grimaced at his brother's name, and his hands twitched by his side,
"You can call it how you like", he said, "But I'm gonna have yer hide."

The sheriff put the shotgun down, and they faced off in the street,
His hands were poised above his guns, he was sweating in the heat;
He waited till he saw Jack flinch, and his hands flew lightning fast,
His trusty colts were smoking as they fired their deadly blast.

For a moment they both stood stock still, then Jack fell to the ground,
His face was full of shocked surprise, but he never made a sound;
The sheriff felt a tinge of pain, and he saw his badge was bust;
As the blood came seeping from his chest, he fell into the dust.

The townsfolk still recall the day, when Jack rode into town,
And every year they say a prayer, on the day they both fell down;
They were buried up on old Boot Hill, their graves were side by side;
The sheriff renowned for killing Jack, with the man who took his hide.
West of a mutilated day, wormwood salts are scattered for some wild-chinned Controllers on a high pinnacle with viva vox in the Mandrake, Vernarth's house of Orion:

Saint John the Apostle says the proverbial Psalm: “In the lofty Cage, Gregorian sylphs, with skillful gestures and mania for cheering, are graced for coming to the Way of the cheap and venerable souls that are made up of the bodies of the evil-born on their railing. , in quagmire of swallowing spittle where the cold winter is banished, to jump from the cold oriental, having to walk with the elbows, and with the daring screams of the Sylphs that shake themselves among the foggy and fleshy tangle with rags and fur cloths flying smoothly through the tops of the oak trees in smoke to purge for Vernarth! Gospel, gospel in the barn of the delicate humus was felt, and that it was refracted in the refined forest with philosophical sacred love. Lord, all of us who are because we are, are you Lord ..., all in my exercises of loving gaze, are channeled by the indexes of my thumb to the little finger at the bottom of the sea, and float again from the little finger to the bottom of the surface. Waving in the transience of the world and holding back, Father God thunder, this with laryngitis when he outlines himself with the vast earthly sight, he covers with his right hand, the phlegm of ***** that made him drive an empty tremor, in my lack of security he testified by singing thousands and millions of choirs at this auction. The first ring of the profile will be carried by Jesus light, rubbing his back with some eyelashes of a drunk beetle, while the beetle will collect water between its extensions that will wail real needs of every morning albi - rosaceous that will travel in a circle towards the auditory of the Last auctioned saying: "As I have not to be where I was and was ..., if at night my beloved morning row impulsively and goes against it so as not to stumble into the night ...". Each cut piece of the dermis will have to be auctioned, I had Faith and the screenplay, encapsulated and embedded in each hope of the ramshackle flock, the impiety-weary ogre needed to stow his empty viscera with the cloth of the celestial kingdom, which at auction was beginning to squeeze and vanish when regurgitating smoothies and disintegrated spaces of belonging of the devotees of Vernarth. The writing is signed with lupus, this Lucia emanated from the morning resentment of skin envy, and from the massif drenched in anarchy and city archeology, lying hesitantly ..., as if the forest gave it some indication of rebirth, under the shadow of twinkling doubt, from the high front where they were nuanced over the engendered banners of truth, elucidating the forbidden and true matrix.

Adelimpia, Vernarth's grandmother, was squatting cutting the drool from the dwarf tree that lost a forage, at around 6:30 p.m. on the 39.9th day of a supposed 14th month of another dimension, almost winding up in a tangled series of productive hesitations and rituals, taking her victorious chariot in Lent where the teacher without felt traction, weave sprinkles of forgiveness on her distributor, starting her shaft and not her running engine, she already knew herself as a commoner with the wake of a ship without knowing where to go. Those who did not see themselves more backward intrigued to be part of the central bar of the rocker of the nymphs in their stadium, with a yawning lip where no one was invited. Mega-watt snitches go to the sacristan, breaking speeds of intangible entities that abide by her law, as a sage vilified in her secular realm, even in nowhere, the atmospheric larynx hissed widening through the flakes of the auctioned field, Joshua leaping with her. Cranky black horse Equus, with his anthropomorphic hooves, accelerated with action that put him among the lost belongings of the plateau, whose east limited him to two half-quarters of each other, and two-thirds slowing the sunset from ruby to ruby, brightening in the shades of green and green. Vernarth  Bernardolipo's father swallowed crops, from whose movements were born out of place gestures of residence, parturient fairies appeared emerging at once, or perhaps not emerging, the afternoon crushes the unplayable sun, Hugh and Anne covered their supra orbital eye areas, more towards a hillside where thousands of repertoires were being knocked down, and copious tableware with caked sugar, which seemed to reduce the acoustics from the beginning in what seemed solidly to fade to postulate in new shades of the weary rubbed rainbow, like thousands of shades doing the times of zascandil  in a curled comb, re-sprouting certain storm deities in the natural bow of the wind entangled in each stratus, sprinkling on the hectares of Possessions, standard deeds, sales orders, mutual funds, bonds ... the coffers and the earthly decomposed. Before each onslaught, a highly dense fog arose, highly ignored, anti-critical, and more disparaging of amassing a high scarcity with a local, in his quintals of his last bread for the flock. Lashes that exceed the grammage, foliage from leaf to leaf, from today until tomorrow, in a traveling satyr of dry leaves, "The Sphincter of the World will need Purgative ...".

Marathon of poisonings,… Lord, you have looked me in the eye; with your boat I will follow you, to your privileged perspiring cinnamon dock with various vociferous songs. What fared more than seven zeros, now they will be eaten by rodents, Lord attend my prayers, the pink mast has been sailing at several knots from the north, and it is rapidly losing its polar location, between verbs never traveled or driven, I dared to show off that the path of the gospel in small distant fragments will abound in infinite space, only the one that predominates will glide over my forehead with an accumulation of everything seen and that today in this sale; where everyone you own and care for, like a baby in front of a dissimilar kinship of good adventure and progeny that will leave your hands. "  

Etréstles says: "Soft and mellifluous presumptions ..., where do I have to look if nothing is heard? What is proposed and permeates the law of possessing and not, perhaps the strap reaches an infinite house, where the sun breaks down ..., the spout of my minimal rebirth slowly turned it into my reoriented defined cell. My grandfather Joshua fertilizes the new sales every day with his hooves bandaged with hemp, the sebum stones since they were so are already spirited circles, the hand of the maker is being compared with his tactile sense, Kaitelka's lungs, full of phosphate residues and sulphated, for the first time they milk in medium drops on their udders, although saying and what they prefer to assert of a worthy Down! If it were not, for his regal model of cetacean ostentation, he would not be in the Horcondising taking from today, towards the end of the curtain in the regular blushes, to create the great detachment, so necessary for the pulsating plain and purge his master Vernarth . The night covers it with sulfur oceanic satin, with the spauto of its jet and a magical moving game. Everyone was distracted when she circled over the routines of well-magnetized charms. More than two subjects were deprived of their well-placed jaw, when the overtime ran not crossing in the entire field in which she lived. It was time to unmask the interveners, the boatswain of the alfalfa field had been eating almonds with oil from the sole of a Joshua bototo shoe, she folded her wings at halftime to take a modest breath, to resume weak paths, deprived of confidence and not. To know who they would obey and to whom they would yield the fruit of their old and stock market work in the garden. Chaos for them, light of Lights, for those affiliated with the ruler who is Joshua, who will live behind a makeshift Patagua tree, erecting  aquisus tents and the dogmas of tomorrow. The magnificent concessions in the Horcondising massif continued to fall precipitously; some rummaged through their accounting almanacs, distanced and squandered their exquisite profits. The stagecoach is moving away, and the barrels of water were scarce, the aroma and tastes of roasted beef comes out over the bushes, the stores sway in a naive wind of blooming daisies, the sales were coming against the owners themselves, the taste of the laughter degraded their own present absence, the paraphernalia of the little birds on the carpet of the mountain plateau were, they began to do mercy of the tip in the exposed beams, the hundred feet with calluses came down from the semi-incinerated poles. Nothing smelled of pride anymore, just the last shadow of Joshua's Chief Sheriff; Vinicius, who thinned out the spotlights of the semi-strongmen still trying to collect his heavy wealth, now that among clouds of heavy cargo they went to give him only one habit to try to fit his body, just to wear his outfit. They looked, looked and kept looking at his octogenarian tearful sapro- genito dream, where the first dream ends, and his exile begins. Vinicius, locks the door, and starts drinking mate tea; while screams of those bad jackals were heard fighting for their inherited evils, in manners of not conquering those who lose a dream of their patriarchal courting-love, under the shadow of the most powerful bush for the rest of their lives in groves. Crumbs come off the beards of Joshua, his galvanized knife cuts multiform slices, to feed everyone equally and continue the purge of Vernarth "

The most desolate deity came; he walked in full sun, shelled and unattached, full of elongated bridles and with haste in his eyes. But not in its strides, thousands of years passed, and it brushed with my lost zeal in the quarrels of the Argolica, in the salinized and rotten feces of Eurymedousa, with its snowy and tricolor feet, hooded with its goods! , therefore, unable to sustain its own air from its nasal socket, dropping it likes brave foam that fell in the fired distance. Bad cooked fruit, with the flavor of a sleeping cinnamon stick, mitigating in its kind balsam, frayed wind yielding 360 and so many more suns, before the last one that I carry on my limbs ends. The end of the End began, in the seven ends adorning my steps. The obscene deities came, with their rebuilding geo music, breaking endometriums of goddess’s mobs and their almost massacred Pillan Mapu, among thousands that were, thousands of nowhere they are ..., in a today already anesthetized. He lies in the stench of the corrugated floor, in the wooden handles and rods stacked on the floor gesturing; the god Pillan Mapuche, under a generic vault of sleep falls into lethargy on the faces, leaving his unintelligible hollow free; and its unbalanced environment, crossing the basaltic moraine that circulated one day from the placenta of the fatigued cemetery. Dreams in kilos everywhere of pressed ducks, with dense covering and grasses on the hooves of bucephalos, crucible, living trident and extraordinary flowers ***** in floating skirmish, with dosing globules, thirst that is born from the whiteness of the first day in confessional liberation, cell of white with a looted look, shields of osculation, like icy air that transpires his ninth life and that is born from his ninth death, splinted in the face of death that mutilates his fingers when crossing his genes of perfidious and monkish plot of a life bypass. I sing or I do not sing, I lack my throne from where I observe the glances with time and impudence, possessing everything behind the back of the macabre time in counter-steps of tender golden plague, in foreign skin growing on my right blanket, from so much passing lights with cracked night outings, walking towards me, between roads and between Monday nights with faces of long and sinuous unctuous branches, with great step and size. Now I have to draw the curtain, on light lying in the shadow of an opening scattered in warm beets. With sincerity ..., and mistake there is no will to germinate in them, I will be born without being with them, to be meaningless without them ..., and that it is above other absences, with great eloquent and numerical weight on absent.

They are still plastered, washed out and with the frizzy pigments of a parnassus Paradise, where it has been intervening over its bloodless headers. Joshua walks thousands of steps on with his Equus skull, like a meridian slipping off certain rods of decay. Thus they all floated in the cephalous porous airs, with great airs of Cain collapsing on Abel recomposed in reserves of a millennium that fell twisted and stunned, captivated by an ominous word. Sendal covered themselves in bandurrias that covered the melodious icebergs of exulting individuals and swollen with passion, with their rummaging and thunderous noises going along with their flowers to the sea dissipated. My paternal grandmother was delimited; she paraded from the openings with cough-covered mounds of the frozen volcano, growing reflective slits of dense gradation in the nervousness of the overhang and angry sighing heat, in all the vertiginous and venerable spirits numbed by the darkness of so many sorrows on their bluish heads. Eurymedousa, already ill-fated to continue in Rhodes, appeared on stilts and with agonizing lights and yielding to the crossbows of the centaurs gagged by the Beauties; they consisted of their seesaws before the agreement with the Master, who gave us her Hellenic manifestos, and no less to others. My uncle King Arthur carried news of the locked consonants of his string and with a riding crop for his steed, tangled in rows that tore his face into small abscesses on his face, which were superimposed on those capillaries of the sweat of Heaven. Blessed Lord, the knee had grafts of golden steel, the horns of the radio sol brego that were broken in its metaphysical pregnancy, and its food collector that had solid gold baths towards a tabernacle fussing through its mucous orifices of alfalfa with the a flavours of irradiated cattle . He paraded with his loving mount flying down his track and kept clueless, at times he ran so swiftly that he crossed evil omens with Joshua, he was seen as weak and white in insulting slanders, Tamayo; his friend, who was a Talamite native, followed him on horseback, his son rode the sheep every summer, passing wool of pure holy insignia of a healthy man.
Along the banks of the reeds, he came riding on a donkey, Edward my paternal uncle, the third of Adelimpia, came three steps before his donkey, and he counted three times before riding him with provisions for good waters, wrapped in an energetic fire of Saturday tobacco in his mouth in mourning, who lovingly watching over himself, looking at today towards a peak for his sheep, looking at them for a manger of borders and tiny hunching phrases of black song about legends of the offender, which tempted to show off invading their fields. He is to the right of his mother Adelimpia, and under the rib of his father Bernardolipo overflowing, giving sugar to the colt Dolly in the sunsets, bequeathing affection with syrup, and a thousand compliments in December of 9,900 AD, Joshua, I remained in shreds of pageantry and endless lives, I always said, my lady, here I bring you a peasant's soup in flower of primed twisted canvas, in this three-year period I must call them to dinner in past lands with sweet potatoes to eat and candlesticks of flying seeds, with eager candies of a crack and their thirsty mouths. Gentlemen, I am Edward, their son, I want to sleep in your arms, after escaping from my worst perfidious toothless bite that still hurts inside. After eating great cholesterols from all over the world, amidst the tools of my children I am, always putting a tobacco leaf caught in the scrawled pieces and in great coinciding strokes, in circles dancing to throw away the bad and broken places badly thought and done. When I get to the end I will cling to the Joshua habit and shout not to leave me alone in the middle of this world, without toasted flour, cheese and tobacco. I am not a malignant man, I am only like those of us who are far below, feeling footprints on my spine, and I do not tell my wife Molly, so that she does not lack chickpea flour for our children wrapped in regrets and ***** with hunger and light blue in goodness, like saints and media, but in the end with clear blue water in my glasses. I invite everyone to my table to dine on oceans and worlds of clear celestial light, because with this hand I break this piece; I am the Son of Adelimpia and the supplier. They brought me in anemone branches when the Lord's headache invaded him, when he felt nails in his hands, to the east of Eden, without steps or turgid edges and a rough runaway palfrey”

The Horcondising massif turned into a great mountain, Edward was in the limestone of some potters and followers of Joshua molding him, they began to bait the rope that merges the mountain range, with the valley at the foot of all the mapus, mud flowing from the monastic floods , here they polisonated in the stony atonement of each lamentable trunk. They say;… faramalla  demonion, would be with a Silfife facing the mass of the vital obstacle, with faded coffee fiber, smeared in wine and bread, with eternal vintage vine. Luccica, Vernarth's mother, tackles familiar corners, with anointed frames of fiction in irrational ergonomics…; in numerous steps that will reach your distinguished heart. An ocean of doubts has fallen due to the inheritance that has precarious injuries, of battered egos and scrubbed by undue ignorance. Mountain delusions and manias, which run through the fibrillated vigils of some soft ropes and their abundant bristles like the choppy of an echidna escaping as it tingles by my twisted temples ”. The Horcondising  tam tam modulates through its crater and its pale face of a perpetual cell. Towards the forgiveness of the primordial ones and the commiseration of the orb burying itself in creation, this sacred and over the pale Sudpichian region will rest, in the roots growling in capillaries of the carbonated earths and in its badly wounded footprints. Horcondising is in quarantine, the elevation of the constellations are hyperillusionible, they migrate Along with Albalalhue and Carnivorous, the succeeded nymph that extracts exudation from a flushed match in the palm of some ideas on rollers, higher up and on angular from other right angles. Toiling with her hands, and rubbing possessions with her mazote and her patronage full of rakes.

Etréstles says: “Beyond all metal of hatred of every god not heard, beyond all evil of timid hatred I have not heard. I hold the playful phrasing of Edenic song, which calls us in voices full of long journeys, especially on this day fading. Through the hollow, belts and picket rings breaking the timid lights of the last sunset.  Cardinals in envelopes of fragile strengths, mountains with borders and deposits in the last voluminous plagues on the mason's eye.  Binding themselves in a pile, with saffron nails in their ears, with moths that run through the unforgivable morphologies. Do not lose life, abandon all noisy fight in coalition with the uninhabited *** of coins, there are forty days left to say goodbye to the god Faramalla, who lies with closed tec, limps to his lost pupils, and the sky swirls over his day when nothing not fit for any drinkable air with light bulb. Horcodising loses millimeters within minutes and rising, towards harvests to harvests, they lose merged schedule of a time without a past, reviling themselves from a present of consanguineous evil with an abstinent future. Luccica; Vernarth's mother, she is a sylph dragged by the tempest moraines, being detached to a contemplation and intake of life. The membranes of the accordion burst, and between brittle passageways crying without union, succumb to the teachings of foolish fate, Luccica as a portion owes its origin to the sea, taking its physiognomic bark from a seal specimen of aqueous flattery, to frize it on a similar surface umlauts on the "u", with phosphorescent and indeclinable forges, making it a beautiful maternal nymph, like the beautiful female picking up a moon in her arms, clinging to a new hallucinatory satellite to engender. "Live and talk with your peer, her dazzling sneaks in and laughs at this prominent queen, to exhale on those who observe her."

End Ellipsis Chapter XXXI
Horcondising  Castle Reign - Sudpichian
Transversal Valley  the Ferments - Parapsychological Regression
Mandrake, the Wild Auction
Stephen E Yocum Apr 2017
Waking two hours before dawn,
my young grandson and I,
The old stagecoach Inn was
dark and silent, squeak
of floorboards underfoot the
only discernible sounds.

A crowd of deer bounded away
off the green front lawn as we
sleepily made our way to the truck.

A bright yellow full moon was on
descending ebb, in a star clustered
sky, allowing just enough light,
to light our way by.


The high desert two lane road was
fully deserted, only our headlights
pierced the darkness. Within seconds
they began to appear, darting from
both sides of the narrow road, as if on
a mission, hypnotically attracted to our
headlights I assume.  At 60 miles an hour
almost impossible to miss.
But, god knows I tried. "Thump, Bump!"

"Thump, bump!" Another bunny under my
wheels, swerving not really mattering, miss
one hit two others. Jackrabbits and cottontails,
as if Kamikaze inspired, eight or ten at a time
from both sides of the road darted headlong
trying to cross. Fast as they were some did not
make it.

We stopped counting the carnage near 100 hits,
no way to tally the many we missed.  No joy in
keeping score of the newly departed. By the time
we reached the Alvord Desert, the ride transformed
into a 25 mile surrealistic trip. Who could have
known there could be so many?

Blood on my tires and my soul, I did not intend.

Out on the vast dry white, hard caked, once long
ago lake bed, now desert, we sat watching the new
day's sun rising up from behind the distant eastern
mountains. This quiet inspiring moment having
been our goal of intention.

All the while, I was distracted from the
magnificent scene before us, as I kept
seeing and hearing the repeated echoes of;
"Thump, Bump! Thump, Bump! Oh no,
not another!" In my guilt ridden brain.  
Why they do it I can not say, compelled
perhaps, like moths to a flame.
Beyond the experienced magnificents of our
surroundings and the sunrise that day, my
grandson received a lesson in empathy and
compassion that will no doubt last forever,
to revere the life of all living things.
preservationman Jun 2017
It was a past about a horse and a Cowboy
But it wasn’t a story of Indians in attack, but happiness being a joy
This was a time when the West had already won
It was some Navajo Indians who became friends among
The Navajo Indians shared cultures and traditions
The Cowboy trained the Indians in how to ride a horse
It was a nature care thing having no force
The Navajo Indians lived in their own reservation
You could call it preservation
The Navajo Indians were trained for battle and attack
Yet some people wonder about that
But the Cowboy instilled that there was trust
He also showed no need to fuss
The horse even familiarized himself with the other horses of the Navajo Indians
Everyone got along
This was the books past back that needed to belong
This was the chapters throughout the book
All one has to do is just take a look
Western movies always portrayed Indians with Wagons and Stagecoach attacks
However, that was the movie’s action fact
It didn’t always happen like that
There was calmness but some fear with uncertainness
People were living in assumption and not on trust
Yet the Cowboy and a horse showing Indians can be friends
But the book illustrated in not to live in fear
A book that showed the story right
What was darkness have shed some light.
Day #4: Cody To Saint Mary’s

After breakfast in the Irma’s great dining hall, I left Cody in the quiet stillness of a Saturday morning. The dream I had last night about Indian summer camps now pointed the way toward things that I could once again understand. If there was another road to rival, or better, the Beartooth Highway, it would be the one that I would ride this morning.

It was 8:45 a.m., and I was headed northwest out of Cody to The Chief Joseph Highway. It is almost impossible to describe this road without having ridden or driven over it at least once. I was the first motorcyclist to ever ride its elevated curves and valleys on its inauguration over ten years ago. It opened that day, also a Saturday, at eight, and I got there two hours early to make sure the flagman would position me at the front of the line. I wanted to be the first to go through while paying homage to the great Nez Perce Chief. I will forever remember the honor of being the first motorist of any kind to have gone up and over this incredible road.

The ascent, over Dead Indian Pass at the summit, reminded me once again that the past is never truly dead if the present is to be alive. The illusion of what was, is, and will be, is captured only in the moment of their present affirmation. The magic is in living within the confirmation of what is.

The Chief Joseph Highway was, and is, the greatest road that I have ever ridden. I have always considered it a great personal gift to me — being the first one to have experienced what cannot fully be described. Ending in either Cooke City or Cody, the choice of direction was yours. The towns were not as different from each other as you would be from your previous self when you arrived at either location at the end of your ride.

It turned severely in both directions, as it rose or descended in elevation, letting you see both ends from almost anywhere you began. It was a road for sure but of all the roads in my history, both present and before, this one was a metaphor to neither the life I had led, nor the life I seek. This road was a metaphor to the life I lead.

A metaphor to the life I lead

It teased you with its false endings, always hiding just one more hairpin as you corrected and violently pulled the bike back to center while leaning as hard as you could to the other side. While footpegs were dragging on both sides of the bike your spirit and vision of yourself had never been so clear. You now realized you were going more than seventy in a turn designed for maximum speeds of forty and below.

To die on this road would make a mockery of life almost anywhere else. To live on this roadcreated a new standard where risk would be essential, and, if you dared, you gambled away all security and previous limits for what it taught.

It was noon as I entered Cooke City again wondering if that same buffalo would be standing at Tower Junction to make sure that I turned right this time, as I headed north toward Glacier National Park. Turning right at Tower Junction would take me past Druid Peak and through the north entrance of Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs and the town of Gardiner Montana. Wyoming and Montana kept trading places as the road would wind and unfold. Neither state wanted to give up to the other the soul of the returning prodigal which in the end neither could win … and neither could ever lose!

From Gardiner, Rt #89 curved and wound its way through the Paradise Valley to Livingston and the great open expanse of Montana beyond. The road, through the lush farmlands of the valley, quieted and settled my spirit, as it allowed me the time to reorient and revalue all the things I had just seen.

I thought about the number of times it almost ended along this road when a deer or elk had crossed my path in either the early morning or evening hours. I continued on both thankful and secure knowing in my heart that when the end finally came, it would not be while riding on two-wheels. It was something that was made known to me in a vision that I had years ago, and an assurance that I took not for granted, as I rode grateful and alone through these magnificent hills.

The ride to Livingston along Montana Rt.# 89 was dotted with rich working farms on both sides of the road. The sun was at its highest as I entered town, and I stopped quickly for gas and some food at the first station I found. There were seven good hours of daylight left, and I still had at least three hundred miles to go.

I was now more than an hour north of Livingston, and the sign that announced White Sulphur Springs brought back memories and a old warning. It flashed my memory back to the doe elk that came up from the creek-bed almost twenty years ago, brushing the rear of the bike and almost causing us to crash. I can still hear my daughter screaming “DAAAD,”as she saw the elk before I did.

I dropped the bike down a gear as I took a long circular look around. As I passed the spot of our near impact on the south side of town, I said a prayer for forgiveness. I asked to be judged kindly by the animals that I loved and to become even more visible to the things I couldn’t see.

The ride through the Lewis and Clark National Forest was beautiful and serene, as two hawks and a lone coyote bade me farewell, and I exited the park through Monarch at its northern end. There were now less than five hours of daylight left, and the East entrance to Glacier National Park at St. Mary’s was still two hundred miles away. An easy ride under most circumstances, but the Northern Rockies were never normal, and their unpredictability was another of the many reasons as to why I loved them so. Cody, and my conflicted feelings while there, seemed only a distant memory. Distant, but connected, like the friends and loved ones I had forgotten to call.

At Dupoyer Montana, I was compelled to stop. Not enticed or persuaded, not called out to or invited — but compelled! A Bar that had existed on the east side of this road, heading north, for as long as anyone could remember, Ranger Jacks, was now closed. I sat for the longest time staring at the weathered and dilapidated board siding and the real estate sign on the old front swinging door that said Commercial Opportunity. My mind harkened back to the first time I stopped into ‘Jacks,’ while heading south from Calgary and Lake Louise. My best friend, Dave Hill, had been with me, and we both sidled up to the bar, which ran down the entire left side of the interior and ordered a beer. Jack just looked at the two of us for the longest time.

It Wasn’t A Look It Was A Stare

Bearded and toothless, he had a stare that encompassed all the hate and vile within it that he held for his customers. His patrons were the locals and also those traveling to and from places unknown to him but never safe from his disgust. He neither liked the place that he was in nor any of those his customers had told him about.

Jack Was An Equal-Opportunity Hater!

He reminded both Dave and I of why we traveled to locations that took us outside and beyond what we already knew. We promised each other, as we walked back to the bike, that no matter how bad life ever got we would never turn out to be like him. Jack was both a repudiation of the past and a denial of the future with the way he constantly refused to live in the moment. He was physically and spiritually everything we were trying to escape. He did however continue to die in the moment, and it was a death he performed in front of his customers … over, and over, and over again.

As I sat on the bike, staring at the closed bar, a woman and her daughter got out of a car with Texas license plates. The mother smiled as she watched me taking one last look and said: “Are you going to buy it, it’s for sale you know?” I said “no, but I had been in it many times when it was still open.” She said: “That must have been a real experience” as she walked back to her car. It was a real experience back then for sure, and one that she, or any other accidental tourist headed north or south on Rt. #89, will never know. I will probably never regret going in there again, but I feel fortunate that I had the chance to do it those many times before.

Who Am I Kidding, I’d Do It Again In A Heartbeat

I would never pass through Dupoyer Montana, the town where Lewis and Clark had their only hostile encounter (Two Medicine Fight) with Indians, without stopping at Ranger Jacksfor a beer. It was one of those windows into the beyond that are found in the most unlikely of places, and I was profoundly changed every time that I walked in, and then out of, his crumbling front door. Jack never said hello or bid you goodbye. He just stared at you as something that offended him, and when you looked back at his dead and bloodshot eyes, and for reasons still unexplained, you felt instantly free.

In The Strangest And Clearest Of Ways … I’ll Miss Him

It was a short ride from Dupoyer to East Glacier, as the sun settled behind the Lewis Rangeshowing everything in its half-light as only twilight can. I once again thought of the Blackfeet and how defiant they remained until the very end. Being this far North, they had the least contact with white men, and were dominant against the other tribes because of their access to Canadian guns. When they learned that the U.S. Government proposed to arm their mortal enemies, the Shoshones and the Nez Perce, their animosity for all white invaders only heightened and strengthened their resolve to fight. I felt the distant heat of their blood as I crossed over Rt. #2 in Browning and said a quick prayer to all that they had seen and to a fury deep within their culture that time could not ****.

It was almost dark, as I rode the extreme curves of Glacier Park Road toward the east entrance from Browning. As I arrived in St Mary’s, I turned left into the Park and found that the gatehouse was still manned. Although being almost 9:00 p.m., the guard was still willing to let me through. She said that the road would remain open all night for its entire fifty-three-mile length, but that there was construction and mud at the very top near Logan Pass.

Construction, no guardrails, the mud and the dark, and over 6600 feet of altitude evoked the Sour Spirit Deity of the Blackfeet to come out of the lake and whisper to me in a voice that the Park guard could not hear “Not tonight Wana Hin Gle. Tonight you must remain with the lesser among us across the lake with the spirit killers — and then tomorrow you may cross.”

Dutifully I listened, because again from inside, I could feel its truth. Wana Hin Gle was the name the Oglala Sioux had given me years before, It means — He Who Happens Now.

In my many years of mountain travel I have crossed both Galena and Beartooth Passes in the dark. Both times, I was lucky to make it through unharmed. I thanked this great and lonesome Spirit who had chosen to protect me tonight and then circled back through the gatehouse and along the east side of the lake to the lodge.

The Desk Clerk Said, NO ROOMS!

As I pulled up in front of the St Mary’s Lodge & Resort, I noticed the parking lot was full. It was not a good sign for one with no reservation and for one who had not planned on staying on this side of the park for the night. The Chinese- American girl behind the desk confirmed what I was fearing most with her words … “Sorry Sir, We’re Full.”

When I asked if she expected any cancellations she emphatically said: “No chance,” and that there were three campers in the parking lot who had inquired before me, all hoping for the same thing. I was now 4th on the priority list for a potential room that might become available. Not likely on this warm summer weekend, and not surprising either, as all around me the tourists scurried in their pursuit of leisure, as tourists normally did.

I looked at the huge lobby with its two TV monitors and oversized leather sofas and chairs. I asked the clerk at the desk if I could spend the night sitting there, reading, and waiting for the sun to come back up. I reminded her that I was on a motorcycle and that it was too dangerous for me to cross Logan Pass in the dark. She said “sure,” and the restaurant stayed open until ten if I had not yet had dinner. “Try the grilled lake trout,” she said, “it’s my favorite for sure. They get them right out of St. Mary’s Lake daily, and you can watch the fishermen pull in their catch from most of our rooms that face the lake.”

I felt obligated to give the hotel some business for allowing me to freeload in their lobby, so off to the restaurant I went. There was a direct access door to the restaurant from the far corner of the main lobby where my gear was, and my waiter (from Detroit) was both terrific and fast. He told me about his depressed flooring business back in Michigan and how, with the economy so weak, he had decided a steady job for the summer was the way to go.

We talked at length about his first impressions of the Northern Rockies and about how much his life had changed since he arrived last month. He had been over the mountain at least seven times and had crossed it in both directions as recently as last night. I asked him, with the road construction, what a night-crossing was currently like? and he responded: “Pretty scary, even in a Jeep.” He then said, “I can’t even imagine crossing over on a motorcycle, in the dark, with no guardrails, and having to navigate through the construction zone for those eight miles just before the top.” I sat for another hour drinking coffee and wondered about what life on top of the Going To The Sun Road must be like at this late hour.

The Lake Trout Had Been More Than Good

After I finished dinner, I walked back into the lobby and found a large comfortable leather chair with a long rustic coffee table in front. Knowing now that I had made the right decision to stay, I pulled the coffee table up close to the chair and stretched my legs out in front. It was now almost midnight, and the only noise that could be heard in the entire hotel was the kitchen staff going home for the night. Within fifteen minutes, I was off to sleep. It had been a long ride from Cody, and I think I was more tired than I wanted to admit. I started these rides in my early twenties. And now forty years later, my memory still tried to accomplish what my body long ago abandoned.

At 2:00 a.m., a security guard came over and nudged my left shoulder. “Mr Behm, we’ve just had a room open up and we could check you in if you’re still interested.” The thought of unpacking the bike in the dark, and for just four hours of sleep in a bed, was of no interest to me at this late hour. I thanked him for his consideration but told him I was fine just where I was. He then said: “Whatever’s best for you sir,” and went on with his rounds.

My dreams that night, were strange, with that almost real quality that happens when the lines between where you have come from and where you are going become blurred. I had visions of Blackfeet women fishing in the lake out back and of their warrior husbands returning with fresh ponies from a raid upon the Nez Perce. The sounds of the conquering braves were so real that they woke me, or was it the early morning kitchen staff beginning their breakfast shift? It was 5:15 a.m., and I knew I would never know for sure — but the difference didn’t matter when the imagery remained the same.

Differences never mattered when the images were the same



Day #5 (A.M.): Glacier To Columbia Falls

As I opened my eyes and looked out from the dark corner of the lobby, I saw CNN on the monitor across the room. The sound had been muted all night, but in the copy running across the bottom of the screen it said: “Less than twenty-four hours until the U.S. defaults.”  For weeks, Congress had been debating on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and even as remote as it was here in northwestern Montana, I still could not escape the reality of what it meant. I had a quick breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and gravy, before I headed back to the mountain. The guard station at the entrance was unattended, so I vowed to make a twenty-dollar donation to the first charity I came across — I hoped it would be Native American.

I headed west on The Going To The Sun Road and crossed Glacier at dawn. It created a memory on that Sunday morning that will live inside me forever. It was a road that embodied the qualities of all lesser roads, while it stood proudly alone because of where it could take you and the way going there would make you feel. Its standards, in addition to its altitude, were higher than most comfort zones allowed. It wasn’t so much the road itself but where it was. Human belief and ingenuity had built a road over something that before was almost impossible to even walk across. Many times, as you rounded a blind turn on Logan Pass, you experienced the sensation of flying, and you had to look beneath you to make sure that your wheels were still on the ground.

The road climbed into the clouds as I rounded the West side of the lake. It felt more like flying, or being in a jet liner, when combined with the tactile adventure of knowing I was on two-wheels. Being on two-wheels was always my first choice and had been my consummate and life affirming mode of travel since the age of sixteen.

Today would be another one of those ‘it wasn’t possible to happen’ days. But it did, and it happened in a way that even after so many blessed trips like this, I was not ready for. I felt in my soul I would never see a morning like this again, but then I also knew beyond the borders of self-limitation, and from what past experience had taught me, that I absolutely would.

So Many ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Moments Have Been Joyous Repetition

My life has been blessed because I have been given so many of these moments. Unlike anything else that has happened, these life-altering events have spoken to me directly cutting through all learned experience that has tried in vain to keep them out. The beauty of what they have shown is beyond my ability to describe, and the tears running down my face were from knowing that at least during these moments, my vision had been clear.

I knew that times like these were in a very real way a preparation to die. Life’s highest moments often exposed a new awareness for how short life was. Only by looking through these windows, into a world beyond, would we no longer fear death’s approach.

I leaned forward to pat the motorcycle’s tank as we began our ascent. In a strange but no less real way, it was only the bike that truly understood what was about to happen. It had been developed for just this purpose and now would get to perform at its highest level. The fuel Injection, and linked disk brakes, were a real comfort this close to the edge, and I couldn’t have been riding anything better for what I was about to do.

I also couldn’t have been in a better place at this stage of my life in the summer of 2011. Things had been changing very fast during this past year, and I decided to bend to that will rather than to fight what came unwanted and in many ways unknown. I knew that today would provide more answers, highlighting the new questions that I searched for, and the ones on this mountaintop seemed only a promise away.

Glaciers promise!

I thought about the many bear encounters, and attacks, that had happened in both Glacier and Yellowstone during this past summer. As I passed the entry point to Granite Park Chalet, I couldn’t help but think about the tragic deaths of Julie Helgeson and Michelle Koons on that hot August night back in 1967. They both fell prey to the fatality that nature could bring. The vagaries of chance, and a bad camping choice, led to their both being mauled and then killed by the same rogue Grizzly in different sections of the park.

They were warned against camping where they did, but bear attacks had been almost unheard of — so they went ahead. How many times had I decided to risk something, like crossing Beartooth or Galena Pass at night, when I had been warned against it, but still went ahead? How many times had coming so close to the edge brought everything else in my life into clear focus?

1967 Was The Year I Started My Exploration Of The West

The ride down the western side of The Going To the Sun Road was a mystery wrapped inside the eternal magic of this mountain highway in the sky. Even the long line of construction traffic couldn’t dampen my excitement, as I looked off to the South into the great expanse that only the Grand Canyon could rival for sheer majesty. Snow was on the upper half of Mount’s Stimson (10,142 ft.), James (9,575 ft.) and Jackson (10,052), and all progress was slow (20 mph). Out of nowhere, a bicyclist passed me on the extreme outside and exposed edge of the road. I prayed for his safety, as he skirted to within three feet of where the roadended and that other world, that the Blackfeet sing about, began. Its exposed border held no promises and separated all that we knew from what we oftentimes feared the most.

I am sure he understood what crossing Logan Pass meant, no matter the vehicle, and from the look in his eyes I could tell he was in a place that no story of mine would ever tell. He waved quickly as he passed on my left side. I waved back with the universal thumbs-upsign, and in a way that is only understood by those who cross mountains … we were brothers on that day.



Day # 5: (P.M.) Columbia Falls to Salmon Idaho

The turnaround point of the road was always hard. What was all forward and in front of me yesterday was consumed by the thought of returning today. The ride back could take you down the same path, or down a different road, but when your destination was the same place that you started from, your arrival was greeted in some ways with the anti-****** of having been there, and done that, before.

I tried everything I knew to fool my psyche into a renewed phase of discovery. All the while though, there was this knowing that surrounded my thoughts. It contained a reality that was totally hidden within the fantasy of the trip out. It was more honest I reminded myself, and once I made peace with it, the return trip would become even more intriguing than the ride up until now. When you knew you were down to just a few days and counting, each day took on a special reverence that the trip out always seemed to lack.

In truth, the route you planned for your return had more significance than the one before. Where before it was direct and one-dimensional, the return had to cover two destinations — the trip out only had to cover one. The route back also had to match the geography with the timing of what you asked for inside of yourself. The trip out only had to inspire and amuse.

The trip south on Rt.#35 along the east side of Flathead Lake was short but couldn’t be measured by its distance. It was an exquisitely gorgeous stretch of road that took less than an hour to travel but would take more than a lifetime to remember. The ripples that blew eastward across the lake in my direction created the very smallest of whitecaps, as the two cranes that sat in the middle of the lake took off for a destination unknown. I had never seen Flathead Lake from this side before and had always chosen Rt.#93 on the western side for all previous trips South. That trip took you through Elmo and was a ride I thought to be unmatched until I entered Rt.#35 this morning. This truly was the more beautiful ride, and I was thankful for its visual newness. It triggered inside of me my oldest feelings of being so connected, while at the same time, being so alone.

As I connected again with my old friend Rt.# 93, the National Bison Range sat off to my west. The most noble of wild creatures, they were now forced to live in contained wander where before they had covered, by the millions, both our country and our imagination. I thought again about their intrinsic connection to Native America and the perfection that existed within that union.

The path of the Great Bison was also the Indian’s path. The direction they chose was one and the same. It had purpose and reason — as well as the majesty of its promise. It was often unspoken except in the songs before the night of the hunt and in the stories that were told around the fire on the night after. It needed no further explanation. The beauty within its harmony was something that just worked, and words were a poor substitute for a story that only their true connection would tell.

This ‘Road’ Still Contained That Eternal Connection In Now Paved Over Hoofprints Of Dignity Lost

The Bitteroot Range called out to me in my right ear, but there would be no answer today. Today, I would head South through the college town of Missoula toward the Beaverhead Mountains and then Rt.#28 through the Targhee National Forest. I arrived in Missoula in the brightest of sunshine. The temperature was over ninety-degrees as I parked the bike in front of the Missoula Club. A fixture in this college town for many years, the Missoula Club was both a college bar and city landmark. It needed no historic certification to underline its importance. Ask any resident or traveler, past or present, have you been to the Missoula Club? and you’ll viscerally feel their answer. It’s not beloved by everyone … just by those who have always understood that places like this have fallen into the back drawer of America’s history. Often, their memory being all that’s left.

The hamburger was just like I expected, and as I ate at the bar, I limited myself to just one mug of local brew. One beer is all that I allowed myself when riding. I knew that I still had 150 more miles to go, and I was approaching that time of day when the animals came out and crossed the road to drink. In most cases, the roads had been built to follow the rivers, streams, and later railroads, and they acted as an unnatural barrier between the safety of the forest and the water that the animals living there so desperately needed. Their crossing was a nightly ritual and was as certain as the rising of the sun and then the moon. I respected its importance, and I tried to schedule my rides around the danger it often presented — but not today.

After paying the bartender, I took a slow and circuitous ride around town. Missoula was one of those western towns that I could happily live in, and I secretly hoped that before my time ran out that I would. The University of Montana was entrenched solidly and peacefully against the mountain this afternoon as I extended my greeting. It would be on my very short list of schools to teach at if I were ever lucky enough to make choices like that again.

Dying In The Classroom, After Having Lived So Strongly, Had An Appeal Of Transference That I Find Hard To Explain

The historic Wilma Theatre, by the bridge, said adieu as I re-pointed the bike South toward the Idaho border. I thought about the great traveling shows, like Hope and Crosby, that had played here before the Second World War. Embedded in the burgundy fabric of its giant curtain were stories that today few other places could tell. It sat proudly along the banks of the Clark Fork River, its past a time capsule that only the river could tell. Historic theatres have always been a favorite of mine, and like the Missoula Club, the Wilma was another example of past glory that was being replaced by banks, nail salons, and fast-food restaurants almost wherever you looked.

Thankfully, Not In Missoula

Both my spirit and stomach were now full, as I passed through the towns of Hamilton and Darby on my way to Sula at the state line. I was forced to stop at the train crossing in Sulajust past the old and closed Sula High School on the North edge of town. The train was still half a mile away to my East, as I put the kickstand down on the bike and got off for a closer look. The bones of the old school contained stories that had never been told. Over the clanging of the oncoming train, I thought I heard the laughter of teenagers as they rushed through the locked and now darkened halls. Shadowy figures passed by the window over the front door on the second floor, and in the glare of the mid-afternoon sun it appeared that they were waving at me. Was I again the victim of too much anticipation and fresh air or was I just dreaming to myself in broad daylight again?

As I Dreamed In Broad Daylight, I Spat Into The Wind Of Another Time

I waited for twenty-minutes, counting the cars of the mighty Santa Fe Line, as it headed West into the Pacific time zone and the lands where the great Chief Joseph and Nez Perce roamed. The brakeman waved as his car slowly crossed in front of my stopped motorcycle — each of us envying the other for something neither of us truly understood.

The train now gone … a bell signaled it was safe to cross the tracks. I looked to my right one more time and saw the caboose only two hundred yards down the line. Wondering if it was occupied, and if they were looking back at me, I waved one more time. I then flipped my visor down and headed on my way happy for what the train had brought me but sad in what its short presence had taken away.

As I entered the Salmon & Challis National Forest, I was already thinking about Italian food and the great little restaurant within walking distance of my motel. I always spent my nights in Salmon at the Stagecoach Inn. It was on the left side of Rt. #93, just before the bridge, where you made a hard left turn before you entered town. The motel’s main attraction was that it was built right against the Western bank of the Salmon River. I got a room in the back on the ground floor and could see the ducks and ducklings as they walked along the bank. It was only a short walk into town from the front of the motel and less than a half a block going in the other direction for great Italian food.

The motel parking lot was full, with motorcycles, as I arrived, because this was Sturgis Week in South Dakota. As I watched the many groups of clustered riders congregate outside as they cleaned their bikes, I was reminded again of why I rode. I rode to be alone with myself and with the West that had dominated my thoughts and dreams for so many years. I wondered what they saw in their group pilgrimage toward acceptance? I wondered if they ever experienced the feeling of leaving in the morning and truly not knowing where they would end up that night. The Sturgis Rally would attract more than a million riders many of whom hauled their motorcycles thousands of miles behind pickups or in trailers. Most would never experience, because of sheer masquerade and fantasy, what they had originally set out on two-wheels to find.

I Feel Bad For Them As They Wave At Me Through Their Shared Reluctance

They seemed to feel, but not understand, what this one rider alone, and in no hurry to clean his ***** motorcycle, represented. I had always liked the way a touring bike looked when covered with road-dirt. It wore the recognition of its miles like a badge of honor. As it sat faithfully alone in some distant motel parking lot, night after night, it waited in proud silence for its rider to return. I cleaned only the windshield, lights, and turn signals, as I bedded the Goldwing down before I started out for dinner. As I left, I promised her that tomorrow would be even better than today. It was something that I always said to her at night. As she sat there in her glorified patina and watched me walk away, she already knew what tomorrow would bring.

The Veal Marsala was excellent at the tiny restaurant by the motel. It was still not quite seven o’clock, and I decided to take a slow walk through the town. It was summer and the river was quiet, its power deceptive in its passing. I watched three kayakers pass below me as I crossed the bridge and headed East into Salmon. Most everything was closed for the evening except for the few bars and restaurants that lit up the main street of this old river town. It took less than fifteen minutes to complete my visitation, and I found myself re-crossing the bridge and headed back to the motel.

There were now even more motorcycles in the parking lot than before, and I told myself that it had been a stroke of good fortune that I had arrived early. If I had been shut out for a room in Salmon, the chances of getting one in Challis, sixty miles further south, would have been much worse. As small as Salmon was, Challis was much smaller, and in all the years of trying, I had never had much luck there in securing a room.

I knew I would sleep soundly that night, as I listened to the gentle sounds of a now peaceful river running past my open sliding doors. Less than twenty-yards away, I was not at all misled by its tranquility. It cut through the darkness of a Western Idaho Sunday night like Teddy Roosevelt patrolled the great Halls of Congress.

Running Softly, But Carrying Within It A Sleeping Defiance

I had seen its fury in late Spring, as it carried the great waters from on high to the oceans below. I have rafted its white currents in late May and watched a doctor from Kalispell lose his life in its turbulence. In remembrance, I said a short prayer to his departed spirit before drifting off to sleep.
preservationman Nov 2020
It was the town of Waterville Glutch
The state of Wyoming
Robbery on a Stagecoach
The passengers who were travelling folks
The Stagecoach was transporting Money and Bonds from Mission Heights, Missouri
to Waterville Glutch to Safeway Bank
The Robbers had the plan all figured out
Even knew the schedule of the Stagecoach moving about
Every Mountain trail was a scout out
The Sheriff moved swiftly without fail
But when darkness hit, it was hot pursuit for later postponed until the next morning
Meanwhile, the Robbers were well secluded in the hills
They were thirsty and headed towards a well
But do tell
The Sheriff had captured the Robbers and vowed that a shooting of them would take place at Sundown
The Sheriff brought back the Robbers to Waterville for a shooting in their Death
He decreed that stealing being a reason to die
So the Sheriff hung the Robbers high on a tree where they will be unable to break free
Tense moments and sweat as the sun beamed high before sundown
Immediately, it was sundown with anticipation
Suddenly the Sheriff shots rang out and the bullets high the Robbers which they were instantly dead
Waterville Glutch Sheriff brought justice to the town
But also relayed a message, if anybody wants to rob or cause disturbance, Justice will be served in a big way
Tony Luxton Mar 2019
Documentary on fast forward,
lacking commentary, towns flash by
Coronation Street domestic dramas,
ordered rank and file urban pedantries.

Perhaps like one of those old westerns,
where they wound the scenery past
a mock-up stagecoach interrior,
so that's where all the porters went.

Rolling landscapes, seascapes, mile on mile,
stiles and paths and telegraph poles,
rain fraying skies and foaming sea,
criss-cross links and creaking carriages.

Slowing down, a shuddering stop,
stiffened limbs begin to flop,
stiffened brains still travel dizzy,
busy station, platform tizzy.
Cinderella memories buried in tombs of yesterday
back in the days when the sun cleaved like a sword
there were no words to explore the light of day
only silent thoughts acclimatized to each nosegay
Scented hopes and well hidden sachets by cedar box
Avon heavenly spritz an act of instant gratification
Lullabies that lingered late into the night , child Knox
telling stories of Princesses glass slippers and locks
Stagecoach mice scurrying past at the stroke of night
run girl run into your castle, see the hands of time
As the moon comes out to flash her flashbulb light
you will be hidden in the covers joyfully taking flight
A Cinder-dress made of chintz from nimble fingers
what is surreal, what is real and what is so sublime
when we get old everything we ever saw, lingers
everything we ever did, turns us into harbingers

Inspired by Artist and Photographer Annie Leibovitz
preservationman Jul 2023
Peter Pan
The Magic, Adventure, Entertainment and numerous surprises
A character of pure fun
Peter Pan is never out done
Disney made it all possible in create
Perhaps it was simply fate
Children of all ages enriched
Adults who the saw all the amazes
Peter Pan goes beyond any movie screen
You will understand actually what I mean
Peter Pan fame gained even more distinction through Peter Pan Bus Lines
The Peter Pan name now was a people moving motorcoach
No way in comparison to a stagecoach
Highway all the way
Even to this day
Peter Pan Bus lines gets his history from New England
A place known as Springfield, Massachusetts
The countryside, Hills, Lakes and the beauty that makes New England
Peter Pan Bus Lines is part of it all
It all echoes Peter Pan
The ride and comfort
Timetable
Peter Pan Bus lines, a motorcoach still able
Years was its start long before I was born
The time frame was somewhere in the 1900’s
Planning in what Peter Pan Bus Lines would become
Peter Pan Bus lines being a traveling road warrior
The pictures of Peter Pan, Captain Hook and many other characters on the side of Peter Pan Buses for the passengers to admire and think like a kid in their day
Captain Hook is always on good behavior
Just beware of the sword, you never know what Captain Hook is thinking
Now Peter Pan Bus Lines has expanded into New York City, Wilmington, DE, Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC
Peter Pan himself will always be present by way of the front, side and back of bus
Peter Pan Bus Lines being the journey of recline and relax
Forget your troubles and don’t feel perplexed
Away our time went
Thanks for Disney for making a time spent
Just imagine and always dream
Journey on mates
KV Srikanth Mar 2022
Most stylish walk
Most effective way to talk
Knew it all
Even before the talkies were to start


Made The Big Trail
With Raoul Walsh
On 70 mm and the film flopped
Career took a drop


Waited for 9 years
To be cast by Papa Ford
Ringo Kid in Stagecoach with Claire Trevor
Was born the greatest International Superstar

Westerns  War Drama and Sports films
All genres suited him
Topped the box office 4 decades
23 times made the Quigley list

A record yet to be broken
It needs another Duke Wayne
Kept audiences happy
Quality films he delivered yearly

Every movie now a classic
Revisiting them makes one nostalgic
50 year career
Ended due to the villain called cancer

In our hearts forever
Immortal in his fame
The only and only
Marrion Morrison who became
Duke Wayne

Here in India
All his movies
Sold out at the Box office
In their hearts built his edifice

My father a huge fan
Didn't cry when his parents died
Shed tears when he read that John Wayne had died


A great Patriot
Proud to be an American
Loved the American way
Dreamt the American dream

Most enviable filmography
One Classic after another
Overflowing box office receipts
Dedicated fan following one of the causes

An idol for the common man
Always in tune with his fans
Three generations of a family
Liked the Duke for different reasons naturally

Decades at the top
Found a place
In millions of hearts
For life and beyond

Everyman' tries to copy
John Duke Wayne s personality
Impossible to mimic his life
You can try and stop with his walk

Won an Academy Award
Playing Marshall Rooster Cogburn
True Grit with an eye patch
One more of his conquests


Also turned Director
Westerns and War the genre
Wore many hats with dignity
In his dignity lies his beauty

Started his Banner
Every film a surefire winner
Called the company Batjac productions
Launched many newcomers giving them  a new direction

Default favorite of millions
Had fans across beyond definitions
Always a Republican
Controversial views never affected his reputation

The name John Wayne
Stood for Macho Integrity and honesty
Saddled up for a cause
Whatever the opposition he never paused

Ford Hawks Huston and counting
Auteurs at the top
Colloaborated with the Duke
Their vision in film manifested

Professional to the core
First to come and last to go
Passion for his profession of choice
Made him people s number 1 choice

Am a great fan too
Not his fan i haven't seen two
God bless him his fans and  family
With great reverence i write this solliloqy
preservationman Dec 2020
Dreams through nightmares
Imagination as it appears
Water is to drink
The mind accelerates on think
Value of time seen through a clock and watch
Baseball is too catch
Movement through various wheeling modes
It’s transportation around the globe
A Stagecoach being a long distance bus
From chair to couch
To hit and say ouch
From Radio to TV
To Technology being a new wave to see
To worship being a church
Education to higher learning
Career being a salary earning
Teach being taught
A Tugboat to Cruise ship
Laugh is to Joke
Sentences and words being what is spoke
Hearing while be heard
Combinations in all different ways
That’s all for today
Napolis Feb 2019
Empty out

my heart,

love's over

time to

go home.


retreat to the

silence of the

empty night

that is no longer

filled with you.


pull out a

sling shot

from my back

pocket and shoot

out the light

of the moon,


that every night

I would  see

reflected

in your eyes.


don't know

how I will ever

get over that.


pirate  dancer,

highway stagecoach

robber.


right before

my eyes

my life pages

burning,


and I can't stop

them revealing

in their fire's light,


the plain simple

truth, over

and over

again.


you don't

love me

anymore.


and the

lonely consequence

of that is

I am going

to miss you,

with this

hole in

my heart


for the rest

of my life.

.
preservationman Oct 2020
What do Cheyenne, Clinton and Evanston have in common?
Now Clinton has nothing to do with the former President
It describes the state of Wyoming
Wyoming has the high mountains and Wide Open Spaces
The absolute Oasis
A state that found in many of the Western Movies
The Stagecoach era being the state of travelling buses
The western venue of horses and Saloons
Drinking until into Sunrise
The state having a Sheriff in your town
It is where draw your Guns between the Sheriff and Villains
Wyoming known for its Westerners and Indians days
Often Indians looked high above
It was possible attack to think of
Wyoming being a place to breath in that fresh mountain air and of course roaming Wyoming’s terrain
Wyoming being a definite exploration
The days of herding Cattle
One would be riding a horse on saddle
Wyoming beats the East Coast
But one is heading for the West Coast
Think of Wyoming of Wuthering Heights
Journey that is endless
Prospering while nurturing
Starting a new life
Vintage in realistic
Creative yet artistic
A Wyoming adventure that would be fantastic
How does one describe Wyoming, “Free too Roam wide open spaces”
preservationman Oct 2020
Distance no option
Destination to capture
Image in a picture
Wheels maneuvering the roads
Welcome aboard and behold
Routes through various highways
It all started during the Stagecoach days
Rocky roads then to highways now
Drivers educated in being engineering wise
Total endurance in energize
Safety of importance is the otherwise
The bus design that captures the mind
The seating arrangement all combined
It’s the comfort the minute you recline back
The specifications all add up to the fact
Restful night sleep
But try not to snooze deep
That request is hard to keep
The bus motor’s zoom
They sound like a beginning musical tune
The engine’s functioning on pitch
The Driver in control at the switch
Nonetheless, Grassroots with buses on thought
I have many scale buses that I brought
But now buses start your engines
Journey into travel
The start being noble
Let your sunrise fill the day into sundown
Buses in my soul can be found

— The End —