Tumbleweed Billy and One Eyed Sam
Tumbleweed Billy And One Eyed Sam
Banked off jagged hills, pushed on by memory
Cause and effect took turns churning the sidewinders
Tumbleweed Billy and One Eyed Sam (The patron Saint of snake eyes)
Dragged down from on high by a freak flood
Through swollen gorges flushed with raging waters
From melted mountain snow with a long way to go
Two cowpokes gathered up by ancient storms without warning
Compounding the Pounding past the sandy canyonous rocks
Crashing through dams along the flooding passage
Tumbleweed Billy and his one eyed friend rolled into town
They came to rest at Rusty Bottom, a dusty town
Released their grip on a sturdy timber log
That brought them there all wet and muddied
With wind against their backs
That swept them up to view the Last Chance Saloon
Looming over there
This brought them to their feet to mossy over
They moved like prestidigitation fakes, hankering for a drink
Taking whiskey down like magic water
Then set out their pedestrian plan there on the table
To take this western town down by gambling pranks
Quick digits formed their sleight of hand
Children suddenly appeared before the strangers
Seemingly from nowhere on the action
The two cowpokes glanced back at them like spies
Sam scared them with his missing eye
Covered by a black patch, looking kinda pirate like
The other clouded, milky white, piercing, with limited sight
Billy grants the young ones wishes on the spot to settle them
Magic to be perfected and performed above a pending storm
He rolls one die. A one comes up. A snake eye
An omen more visible than not
This made the children fear an awful lot
Dice played a major role for his desires and devices
He kissed them twice for luck then vanished in their cast
Tumbleweed Billy rolled out of Rusty Bottom Town
Taking his dice and the bad eyed man
In a singular milky white last lost glance around
On the same south winds now gone from town
Both sidewinders de-materialized, vanished in that instance
As though they never existed
Invisible, never seen before, never seen again, as foe or friend
They disappeared
As for the children; who gambled on the chance of magic
Got exactly what they asked
And what was granted when they first wished it
For the two to disappear
Tumbleweed Billy and Sam were gone as quickly as they came
And no one really missed them or their game
That is; their tricks, dice and way of life
Their little slice of paradise
9/16/14 Cowboys in the badlands – Poetry contest
Copyright © Earl Schumacker | Year Posted 2014
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