GREGORY CROSBY
Prescott, Arizona
At once the quick & the dead
& the gun-hand aches, bullet-grazed, scar sapphire
near the hollow that holds the pen
& the eye outdrawn,
long recessional riding out of town into faultless sky
toward something inside, riding hard, moving
(a runaway stage)
& see the first face the mustache
& melodrama soundlessly turn to
the camera
& pull the trigger
& see
Marlene Dietrich wiping the red stain from her own lips before dying
into a kiss
& Gary Cooper stinking of fear as he searches every eye for the staving off
of fate
& Jimmy Stewart wild-eyed enraged pulling his dread bountiful corpse to his
grieving chest
& John Wayne holding his arm wounded beyond speech in the coffin of
open daylight
& Dean Martin trembling in invulnerable vulnerability, a drunk playing a drunk
playing drunk
& Clint Eastwood painting the town red as surgery, steely eyed as a surgeon
silent as death
& Tom McLaughlin with his black hat & half-breed defiance, rifle balanced upon
one hip
& Val Kilmer whispering “I’ll be your huckleberry,” a death rattle escaping his
blue lips
& it’s drinks all around,
after hours, the frontier
grand opening, going out of business
& teary cowboys brand the sacred cows
lowing on the subdivided plains
& video poker is allowed to practice
its ancient way of life out on the Rez
& nostalgia for the never was, the
never would droops like a sunset
ridden into, written off:
the Old West in aspic
& standing up, weary, from the table
where aces of a sort were once cradled in sleeves,
where once love letters poured, a fat vein
of silver for gilded lilies
& striding out from under pressed tin
heavens, the moon-faced popeyed gargoyles
of the Hotel St. Michael, staring,
& into summer light across the courthouse square
alone between bandstand & brash, brass,
bronze Bucky O’Neill (shot through
his big mouth at San Juan Hill),
walking in the steps of Billy Jack,
tinder-footed & green-horned,
& like him planting one sole,
firmly in the memory,
& wheeling the other, a hawk
(callused, earthbound)
on the arc of myth, mischance,
right into the face of the
implacable enemy--
dueling with
sundown,
heart hid
behind a
star,
face
turned
west
Gregory Crosby's work has appeared in Court Green, Copper Nickel, Epiphany, Rattle and Leveler, among others. He used to be an art critic, but then thought better of it.
Prescott, Arizona
At once the quick & the dead
& the gun-hand aches, bullet-grazed, scar sapphire
near the hollow that holds the pen
& the eye outdrawn,
long recessional riding out of town into faultless sky
toward something inside, riding hard, moving
(a runaway stage)
& see the first face the mustache
& melodrama soundlessly turn to
the camera
& pull the trigger
& see
Marlene Dietrich wiping the red stain from her own lips before dying
into a kiss
& Gary Cooper stinking of fear as he searches every eye for the staving off
of fate
& Jimmy Stewart wild-eyed enraged pulling his dread bountiful corpse to his
grieving chest
& John Wayne holding his arm wounded beyond speech in the coffin of
open daylight
& Dean Martin trembling in invulnerable vulnerability, a drunk playing a drunk
playing drunk
& Clint Eastwood painting the town red as surgery, steely eyed as a surgeon
silent as death
& Tom McLaughlin with his black hat & half-breed defiance, rifle balanced upon
one hip
& Val Kilmer whispering “I’ll be your huckleberry,” a death rattle escaping his
blue lips
& it’s drinks all around,
after hours, the frontier
grand opening, going out of business
& teary cowboys brand the sacred cows
lowing on the subdivided plains
& video poker is allowed to practice
its ancient way of life out on the Rez
& nostalgia for the never was, the
never would droops like a sunset
ridden into, written off:
the Old West in aspic
& standing up, weary, from the table
where aces of a sort were once cradled in sleeves,
where once love letters poured, a fat vein
of silver for gilded lilies
& striding out from under pressed tin
heavens, the moon-faced popeyed gargoyles
of the Hotel St. Michael, staring,
& into summer light across the courthouse square
alone between bandstand & brash, brass,
bronze Bucky O’Neill (shot through
his big mouth at San Juan Hill),
walking in the steps of Billy Jack,
tinder-footed & green-horned,
& like him planting one sole,
firmly in the memory,
& wheeling the other, a hawk
(callused, earthbound)
on the arc of myth, mischance,
right into the face of the
implacable enemy--
dueling with
sundown,
heart hid
behind a
star,
face
turned
west
Gregory Crosby's work has appeared in Court Green, Copper Nickel, Epiphany, Rattle and Leveler, among others. He used to be an art critic, but then thought better of it.