Alchemist's Pen

Our Last Night’s Stand






He'd blow in with warming winds from down under and we'd slip coolly under cover to meet,









  

in our magnetic storm
we'd brew to omnipotent,
once it
swept us off our feet.













Mt. Evans, Colorado










But our two-bit blade deep in her back was no match for her silver bullet on his hand,









     
  
left hidden in a holster
unseen until
two paces late
in our last night's stand.













San Juan Bautista State Park, SJB, CA










When our wildflowers, still dewy, uprooted and dried as turning tumbling weed,









     

with his sudden spinning of that
cocked pistol that
even I
couldn't pretend to not see.













Phoenix, AZ










And I went down with the leaden weight of that devilish first crack of unwelcoming dawn,









  

that uplit his settled frontier and
cast my coming days
only darker
than they were long.













Bodie Historic State Park, Bridgeport, California


















Phoenix, AZ





  

Bald truth clipped so my bygone self to shell, lay spent, empty on barren ground,









  

but I well know
I aimed, at me,
his loaded gun
until he rang its sound.













Malakoff Diggins Historic State Park, Nevada City, CA


















  
The flashed second
his rakish
mug shot all
my fore long idling
senses with
my sixth’s first
bolt of light;

forged a dire wish,
 into
iron conviction
its
rollin' thunder
bode this wrong
would be right.













Bodie Historic State Park, Bridgeport, California










And, as never has this attempted robber wanted, at all costs damned, the rugged bounty of a man,









  

was I too yellow to rope in
the akin wanton outlaw,
most handsome,
to tip his own end plan.













Sedona, Arizona










Just blind-anted all in before his full house was revealed by the red ace down his sleeve,









  

that, in one, folded the
hustling two of a kind;
an uncalled pair of dark shade
who played hearts to deceive.













San Juan Bautista HSP


















Mojave Desert, California










  
Came to ashes, our blaze, an ungloried secret sealed by chapped lips til by scant etched stones of our tombs;









  

still, I seek my pardon
I will never grant
for what we did dirty
over dusty saloons.













The Washoe Club, Virginia City, NV 


















  
Or for my riding
hard that ridge
to try steal
an
ethereal sunset
in a fevered
runoff dream,


when he and I
were the
real villains
he feigned, and I willed,
his distressed-
unwitting damsel
to be.













Death Valley National Park, California










For I didn't know he'd hitched latterly their wagons, or ever had dropped one knee to kneel,









  

but that I did still another
claimed him for partner,
warranted my maiming by
glint of her steel.













Bodie Historic State Park, Bridgeport, California










And, if not both, of two lost souls who rode wild in western town faster than chasing morals or law,









  

one ever fires furious
sharp shots of shame,
I will never
outpace or outdraw.













Bodie Historic State Park, Bridgeport, California


















Death Valley National Park, California




































	

		
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