WEBVTT

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This last poem is
called "The Westerns."

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Once again, Randolph
Scott is thinking out

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loud on TV about the end
of freedom, God, mercy, why

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barbed-wire fences
no longer hold back

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old or new grudges, rabid
squatters, the wagonloads

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of gruelling pilgrim faith
in an ever-westward-expanding

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destiny, while once again
I'm up late remembering

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the lacquered sunsets on the
Paramount's patched screen,

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Saturday mornings.

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Me and ten to
fifteen other hoodlum

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sons of immigrant dreamers
aloft in the filthy froth

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of the balcony, surrounded
by the ear-popping,

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fall to your knees and
say hallelujah serendipity

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of the swooning music.

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Westerns was what we wanted,
couldn't get enough of.

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All those standoffs
between post-war rectitude

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and existential greed,
feeding our burgeoning hunger

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to be part of the great
American rhapsody.

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Everyone mumbling,
believing only

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in gullibility, Technicolor,
eradicating evil, owning

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everything.

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Is this why every ten
minutes the plot questioned

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everyone's manhood for
no reason whatsoever,

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the town drunk drank,
the hero sought revenge

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from a flashback
that had murdered

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his entire family
in slow motion,

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why everyone believed in
the rewards of futility,

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the solace of violence?

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The dignity of misfortune
waited endlessly

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for the always late, just around
the bend, steeped in appetite,

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in irresistible grief, beaten to
a pulp, utterly insulted point

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to arrive, hoping it'd tie
everything together finally,

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maybe?

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Why all these peculiar
curlicues are whirling

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through my sleepy brain?

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And my tiny moment is
also quickly passing

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because nothing has
changed, while the end

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is taking me somewhere
the beginning

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never wanted me to be.

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Thank you.