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Open Poetry #49
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Outside The Law In Gillette, Revisited and Abridged
| Open Poetry #49 |
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Outside The Law In Gillette, Revisited and Abridged |
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icebox Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383in the shadows 
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Ride the wind, don't ask me where it's going; it's free like dying like paying taxes like waiting for tomorrow. I sat in a bar one night, in Wyoming, in a town called Gillette like the razor, bolted together like the rest of the town I was bolted together with whiskey, like everyone else in the bar; there was nothing to do after renting Dolores, big ugly broad said she came from Juarez, sounded more like Union City. Even before I was born, those flat Island bones had never worn pretty. So I talked to a man who'd met Hope in the real War, who wanted more than anything else to be called Sundance, whose name I think was Ralph, but he was buying, he was an ex-roughneck from Fillmore Utah, a town that should have died with the guy it was named for. We soon switched to drinking nips, like I learned on Staten Island when I was under age in outlaw bars; I don't know where he learned it before I hit Gillette but he knew to do them three swallows at a time, bang them on the bar to get another, then throw the empties at the off-key band whining to be famous on a smoky red lit stage wrapped in false security of a chicken wire cage. Some blasters bought us rounds because Sundance was the souper who drove their nitro through a god forsaken desert, so some college kid could look for natural gas so some house wife back east could cook some beans for her hubby and her screaming kids, while watching strangers killing strangers on news TV; so she'd never know it had been me, but I was drinking beer for free, and Sundance he said swinging pipe was for buffoons, boneheads and immigrants; he was forty-eight and old for his profession, with a wife in Oklahoma and a mortgage out of Tulsa he swore he was gonna beat the odds. I listened to him, drunk and spent, I was a shadow hero with thirty days, my tools and time for rent; here the dirt was yellow dust nothing green grew near, that Sundance he had a simple tell he looked old and tired of waiting for a bright light bang he'd never hear, a look I knew too well like he'd been staring at the wire, like he'd been driving soup for twenty years instead of just a season; he believed somehow tomorrow could be just another day. I'd come young to gritty food, slimy mud, jungle blood the odds I'd learned already said I would walk on water before Sundance Ralph would live to see his dreams come true, but he and I did swap some lies drink some beers and share a woman whose mind was uglier than I'm comfortable remembering; Gillette, Wyoming was a boomtown in 1969. ©2003, ©2014 by icebox |
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Margherita Member Seraphic
since 2003-02-08
Posts 22236Eternity |
Wow, dear Charly, what a tale. It impressed me and also moved me, because your language is so vivid that I almost could feel the dust of the desert between my teeth! And the last stanza is just a total hit! Margherita |
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JerryPat2 Member Laureate
since 2011-02-06
Posts 16975South Louisiana |
Man oh man. I've been there. Wyoming I mean. Been there in the bar in other sundry places. I know the woman too. She seemed to follow me around from town to desperate town. You've brought it all back. Actually it never has left me. ~*~ If they give you ruled paper write sideways. ~*~ |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
fine writing...James |
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latearrival Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499Florida |
1969 the year That chaged the world ~ and I guess a lot of people also~ |
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Lori Grosser Rhoden Member Patricius
since 2009-10-10
Posts 10202Fair to middlin' of nowhere |
Wow! That was powerful! Very vivid images. 1969 was longer ago than I care to admit I can remember. Yes, I remember. lori  |
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BluesSerenade Member Patricius
since 2001-10-23
Posts 10549By the Seaside |
This reminds me of the song.... If you could read my mind love What a tale my thoughts could tell. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This was really great reading ... The entire scene came alive in living color. I was so there. Most excellent, good poet sir. |
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Michael
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-13
Posts 7666California |
Wow... so you've met my ex-wife huh? Well, maybe the last line was just a startling coincidence. glad you revisited this one, and took us along for the ride. I haven't had a drink in near 4 years now, but this made me remember my drinking days, and even miss them a little.Michael |
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