Fist Full of Dollars

Fist full of dollars,
no tomorrows.

No change,
no cattle free-range,
and no morning after
tablets to change things
from resistance to gains.

Fist full of dollars,
no quarreling fathers.

Hangman’s noose,
thought to be not loose,
and better than tiger tightness,
though no hipper than a string
with no kiteness.

Frightening to children happening
upon it swinging,
that man,
that kind of implied
weightlessness clinging.

Lightning and gin & tonics
clacking & clinging,
pneumatics and by hanging
prematurely he’s getting,
in places never planned,
more than tan,
more than blistering well-meaning.

Empty loop,
and footprints where an empty
shadow once could fit in a hoop.

Nervous re-visitors looking around,

not a sound,
except Cookie’s beans grumbling
underneath protruding abdominal sonnets
in camouflage, polyester, cellophane
unwoven and stitched together bonnets.

Sloppy noose tying while the
bandana-management was lying
about the Harry Houdini-ness of him,
compliments of a
Fist full of dollars,
who’s twice filled boots
are now somewhere they can
only guess,
is similar to where the owl goes
after its incognito midnight hoots.

Retched trail coffee
they’re having to swallow
and buzzards making the dogs holler.

Eastwood to Westwood;
about three hundred miles if you’re in
a convertible without a hood.

Donkey relationships,
and the eleventh commandment,
‘Thou shall not insult a man’s

familiar-pillow’s worth’s weight in
gold and trail-lugging-spirit-filament.’

Fist full of dollars,
bullets, wild men and spacious
prairie-cerebellum upstairs.

Rattlesnake dens,
rooster feather pens,
chickless hens
and circus conjoined twins.

Dueling cowboys walking backwards
into the sunset afterward,
while hermit crabs
grab up bigger shells
than they’ve already had.

Fist full of dollars,
necklace of blisters,
no lip balm,
no step or maternal sisters,
no stigmata to palm,
no ‘I’ll love you more later psalm.’

And all the dust anyone could
ever wish for in a windy sermon’s
speaking in tongue storm.

June 16, 2009