Go and See (an attempt at free verse)

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Open Poetry #51

Go and See (an attempt at free verse)

Gunslinger
Senior Member

since 1999-10-09

Posts 901
TX, USA

0 posted 2021-08-10 06:20 PM

"Go And See"
A land of pastel colors .except for moments of stark clarity
Which come at unpredictable times-
A land where time is meaningless; differing little from a hundred
years ago-
Or even a thousand. or...keep adding zeros.
A land which gives meaning to the term,”survival of the fittest”.
Its sands are littered with the bones of the unfit-
Or the unprudent, or the unwary?
The saying was, “The west is hell on women and horses”-
Perhaps more acurately? The west is hell!
But it is also heaven, pure, raw; as unspoiled now as from the hand
of Creation.
Like a wild, wanton woman plying her trade-
She has everything a man needs to stir his libido, and ego-
Beauty enough to stop your heart-
Enough mystique to cause you to despise the costs to know her better-
Challenge? Only if the very matter of survival is a challenge to you.
The stakes she plays for are strictly blue chips-
Your life, your soul...many a man traded their souls for the lure of
gold,
Or silver, or DEATH!!!
No woman has the drawing power over a man that the West does-
Not Helen, nor Cleopatra. None of the courtesans of the courts of
Europe.
A land where one moment there is nothing! Dry, desolate, devoid of
life-
Let a minuscule amount of water lave her tortured face, and???
Paradise! Flowers everywhere! Greenery! Eden was no lovelier.
In hours the sun bakes the last vestige of the life-giving water out
of her-
And death reigns supreme.
Fortunes have been found, and lost; the desert never looks the same
from moment to moment-
A few degrees difference in approach, and you can miss a canyon
mouth; a game trail-
Or a water hole....and to miss the latter means YOU MISSED! Without
water you die.
You learn if you wish to live, What plants need water, watch for
bees, Gambrel’s quail never
venture far from water; animal sign leads to water. Green in the
desert means water, for water is life.
Ghost towns, lost mines, cliff ruins; Boot Hill’s, old diggin’s,
legends....
The desert is full of legends: the lost Dutchman’s Mine, the little
people, Indian legends-
Where there is smoke there is fire! There are many mysteries in the
desert-
To many to excuse as imagination...Go and see!

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