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Cowboy Shooters On Motor Scooters

[Just a little note to help maintain the peace on Soup.          
To cause no animosity among our friendly group
I myself am partial to some tasty asian food 
I hope you’ll see my tale as fun and not just think me rude

And also for the rest of it, I trust you won’t expect
That anything that follows is historically correct!]

                    ***
Those cowboys used to ride their horses under desert sun
Each of them had practised hard to be the fastest gun
They’d eat their beans and chew tabaccy till the day was done
When, ’round the fire they would sit and fart and spit for fun

But horses they need tending so one man would stay awake
To give them food and water so those horses did not bake
And when a horse dumped on his boots he said for goodness sake
I say my prayers, ain’t shot no-one, so, Lord, give me a break

That night the lightning lit the desert, thunder rolled on high
The only other sound around, a lone coyote cry
One cowboy wearing mucky boots observed that odd green sky 
And when the rest awoke a hundred years had passed them by

John the Wain woke up again and couldn’t hear his steed
Who always neighed and whinnied when he had his morning feed
But Red who'd watched the horses and who’s beard now reached his knees
Said while you kipped much time has slipped, your horses now are these

A dozen motor scooters stood with no horse there beside em
Decrepit Red so nearly dead had books on how to ride em
He said I’ve aged these hundred years but somehow you defied em
I found no helmets anywhere no law has yet required em

Wain looked at Red and then he said that means my girl is dead
The last time that I saw her she was snuggled in my bed
If I could I swear I would take measures to be better
If it meant that I could ride her...
... round on my Lambretta

He whistled up his cowboy clan, who gathered toting shooters
He told them all to learn to ride on these weird looking scooters
Pretty soon they’re whizzing round like half demented looters
Shooting bullets in the air and sounding off their hooters

But soon they saw that something more was playing on his mind
He said he cannot rest until they find who they must find
We came to catch the injun in a hundred years gone by
It makes me sigh to think that I  didn’t watch him die

Well Red had one last breath to take before he lay on down
I heard that there be Indians in that there yonder town
Wain buried Red and then he led his men off on a sortie
Something that he should have done way back in eighteen forty


Twelve Lambrettas lined the street they entered through the door
Good evening Gents, the owner said what can I do you for
Wain said speak of Geronimo, I need to know the score
The owner said Geronimo don’t come round here no more

We’re not that kind of Indian but we have heard his story
We understand he didn’t go out in a blaze of glory
They locked him up for quite a while and then they let him go
And that’s the last thing anyone heard of Geronimo

So tell me is there something else that I can do for you
I’ll get the chef to serve you up a tasty vindaloo
With pilau rice, chapati and perhaps some sag aloo
And maybe I’ll throw in for you a poppadom or two

Wain, a little side-tracked huffed, I hope he got a fine
Shoot him, jail him, string him up: that decision was mine
’twas no-ones jurisdiction to let that man go but me
The chef came out and asked him, would you like mango chutney?

And so they ate, the spices had them huffing and a puffing
But for a hundred years they’d slept and they had eaten nothing
Although the food was very hot it did taste rather yummy
But they were used to bland and tasteless baked beans in their tummy

They couldn't know Geronimo had lived and wasn't gone
The ambush he had set up or the steed he sat upon
So Wain and all his gang they mounted up and scootered on
And each Apache started up his Harley Davidson 

They rode toward the sunset and those scooters they were flying
But it was not the scooters that were noisily back-firing
They leapt off by some bushes and as one they started crying
I feel like I’ve been gut-shot and I think I may be dying

So Geronimo and all his braves just sat with engines running
Their plan was good although it looked like no cowboys were coming
And so there was no fighting on that day there in the pass
For John the Wain and all his gang were squatting on the grass

Copyright © Terry Flood

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things