A Badge of Broken Beauty
Before the bawdy houses all went broke,
Contented cowboys, flush with cash, would go.
Fernando with his friends and other folk
Perused each painted pretty there on show.
These glitter-gloved young ladies lounged in style;
They'd wait and wonder who would be the one
To leave his liquor for a little while
And fork a fiver over for some fun.
They were the wanton women of the west
Who proffered pleasure proudly for a price.
Big hearts are often broken in the best
Who lose at love like gamblers lose at dice.
Just tin-pan ladies toiling tough till dawn
With wages weak for weary work each night.
They soon would wake to see their youth was gone;
Their better life for burdens born took flight.
The cowpoke cattle drives brought towns new breath
But soon the railroad ripped the range in two
As cattle cars crushed cattle drives to death
And cattle drivin' cowpokes soon were through.
The pretty painted ladies proved no use
To lazy little towns now cast astray.
Love's labor flees when life is lived too loose,
Dependent on a cowboy's poke each day.
So now that time is told as tales of old
Where cowboy campfires burnt away the chill
When weather's whimsy whipped up winds so cold
They'd cut right through and break a cowboy's will.
Some words at last for ladies who sold love
Then disappeared like dust of early dawn.
They faded like the glitter on their glove,
A badge of broken beauty, dead and gone.
Copyright © Tom Mcmurray | Year Posted 2010
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