who has a dragon tattoo on her tummy,
is something my dear wife of eighteen
years sees with the knowledge it is a
different kind of chrome for my cycle
& that women are not objects really a
picture like this, man, cannot be taken
away from me as I near my birthday of
forty-two years & anyway with my dear
lady in the pillion pad I cannot find
that photograph especially when there
is a swell in the road & she hangs on
.

6,000 U.S. Marines for
77 days held Khe Sanh
while from the Puzzle
Palace all those
Ringknockers told
President Johnson
what he did not want
the six o'clock news
to bring for supper:

that another Dien Bien Phu
could be boiling up from
the Laotian jungle for
which Walter Cronkite
would blame him
so to defoliate
critcism & not

get the proper sight
picture on the NVA's
Dac Cong he arranged
a boondoggle that is

of no use to the Marines
who held out anyway from

simple anger & an American
interest in proving those
in the field superior to
those who think they are .

I.The Necessity of HIstory
an American gunfighter is hired by Mormons
who would not protect themselves after
the Civil War & becomes known as an
angel who destroys for those not
inclinded to do so .

another but also an American gunfighter
his name never in print
disappeared into Mexico
& was more than likely

the night reflected into
snow iced over as though
fears upon the vision an
instant necessary coming
from a sidestreet looking
through you on a motorcycle
not even seeing this slip as
centered into future's crosshairs

: & you cannot open
fire at the vehicle nearing
as you are unseen & must wrangle
loose from its incoming blindness not now
as when sighting buffalo running your own
horse down for now we look the collimator
bore-sighting tube in the eye while there
is yet another incoming object from
the side ripe from looking at visions
of my father's death last fall (when I got called

I had already dreamed the night before that
I would & this kind of interloping mania of
predisposition magnum disbelief would make
a man's aim steady & choice of pistol only

perfect for the job .

II.The Restraint of Politics
somewhere across the border hooves pound
an approach & doves make it damn near illegal
to protect whether one would or not because hawks
of any flight receive legal penalties & if they are
victims their predators have more freedom: because we
are living when an avenging angel suffers not pride but
jury trail & weapons don't work when even a lost gunfighter
cannot ride easily back into proper use & the imagination of
those without help
.

III.The Wisdom of American Origins
the U.S. Constitution gives me the right
to own firearms of any kind yet I will
not hire out as a gunslinger and due
to an awful demise of courage & ethical sense
I wonder if that
destroying angel needs a job
or if the lost outlaw shall
experience resurrection on our
behalf for if we should pull
the trigger lawyers trained
at attack decent movtives
feared by cowardice left over from wary
politicians who have eaten too much for
supper will pander us to a legal ambush
unlike those who originated that sacred
American document might ever imagine in
their most worried hearthfire visions of
American determination seen by a common
eye through iron sights:
that is what Thomas Jefferson spoke for
us on 19 August 1785:

"A strong body makes the mind strong.
As to the speecies of exercise, I advise
the gun. While this gives moderate exercise
to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and
independence to the mind. Games played with
the ball and others of the nature are too
violent for the body and stamp no character on
the mind. Let your gun
therefore be the constant
companion of your walks.
Never think of taking a book with you."
books says The Holy Ranger are to be taken where
you can park the Harley-Davidson when your
sweetie couldn't make it & the ride needs
hermetic unraveling or even where the
night is falling & she was not there: but
on the ghost journey
indeed that constant companion
must be a Single-Action in 45
Long Colt preferably outfitted
with ivory stocks slung inside
a leather rig worn as well from use as the
binding on a book gets when it is read any
time action needs primer
ideas as ammunition rage .

IV.The Possibility of American Resurrection
we consider death when the most common details
remind us of past experinces with it
there are those times too when
the future dies right into
our present preoccupation: here is the time
an Avenging Angel
the last of the gunfighters
dreams of steel & chrome steed upon the land .

V.The Harley-Davidson Factor
it is more than pulling out
the choke & snapping the switch
then turning the petcock & key before
twisting the handle a few times & hitting
the starter button :
it involves a leg over a saddle to easing
back against the soft enbrace of a lady
there in buckskin with fringe falling
slowly over curves that cannot be
found on any road alone
then adjusting that
knife sheath &
hearing a first gear shift that sounds
like a horseshoe on cobblestone near
my father's store where I would head
in the morning before school to wash
the windows & one walk (which was
always taken down the Chicago
& North Western tracks until
I hit Appleton Street in
that the steam engines
made iron horse paths
to follow for a nine
year old Wisconsin
boy lost in Texas
Ranger comics) led me straight into the rasp
of an elegant Harley fitted
with a sidehack & ridden
by a man in black leathers
who asked me if I needed a
lift so the rest of the way
that day I rode to work & never
could get out failing math
test & barely passing English
I immediately understood what
it has taken forty-two years
to put into gear -- that
riding and American Vision is the efficent
revenge for
all the cowardice those who deem
it unfair to defend family with cowpoke
technology spend upon laws that weaken
democracy & turn men into snotnosed
kids needing permission to wipe & ride
away those
who would do us harm
.

VI.The Courage In That Grace
handling a Harley around a corner when blacktop
immediately turns to gravel & a foot down won't
save it
gives an
awful strength
to the heart & your hands can hang on
to mindful courage all
the time with graceful force & a power
rises from history that will not be
toppled by fashionable modern laws.

VII.The Nature of Present Adversity
there was a time
when a person seen
stealing your horse
would not keep a lawyer
in business for taking
transportation away
was close to murder then
.
today we see
crimes worse

than horsestealing
pass easily into a

barrister's bargin that
time though was
right for you & me & your kids & mine
& your girl & the one to whom I;ve been
married for nineteen years, hell, we have got
to listen for the
hooves pounding as tire
treads rounding
corners of adversity & those not
inclined to be of worthy comradery
not
able to stare death down cracking
lips as one cracks the visionary
ground barrier with evolution fury
not
willing to take their troubles all
alone when proper with power fire
burning into
unfair practices even if
they are in writing & defense cash
will have to be raised like an
American Flag -- those are not a
bunch to respect so we must hear a

parting of heavenly boundaries
with angelic rumbling & the avenging
holy rider enters our stride & there
comes mystical knowledge chromed for
strength & pride but meaning a

lot more than poetry yet less than
we can say to one another as we
gather around the campfire
hanging onto righteous
sparks that rise into
the night leaving
tracers the eye
alone follows
beyond pages
written by
this light
.

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