Prelude

Let me lay the scene: a Western plain—

In all directions, level with the eye, horizon.

At our feet a ditch, half-filled with water,

Around which grows the only green in sight,

Dry tufts of grass, a tangled cactus.

Nothing moves, unless the white clouds overhead

Inch toward the West. The sun, straight up

Beats down. Look! Look to the East, at land's edge,

A dot. I think it is a man comes riding —

It is the Cowboy, lean and tall and handsome!

He swings, easy, from his tooled-leather saddle,

Unstraps a canvas padded steel canteen,

Bends to the stagnant pool and, with his hand,

Skims the green scum to the side, and drinks,

Bathes his wrists, and, when the pool is still,

Looks at the face he has not seen for days.

CURTAIN RAISER

Channel 14 in the Key of C

His horse, off-stage, spent, standing by the kliegs

And cameras, unmasks and smokes his cigarette,

He speaks to all of us. Note the tilt

Of his square-cut jaw, the cleft in his chin,

How the simple bandana half covers his ample

Adam's apple—in spasm at exhale.

Justice is done. His name is Rock

Or Adam Something, but now he will confess

"My name is…" any Tom, Telemachus, or Dick

Just like the rest of us.

I am not persuaded.

And now, profile, close up, in American English

He explains why this here filtered cigarette

Gives me pleasure.

Next program.

Too soon the image fades. I linger with him,

Still admire the clean-cut of The Cowboy, his V

Torso, his two side-slung six-shooters.

I am still out West, to find what he is like,

This man, daring to be the father of my country.

OVERTURE I

Three blocks South, the tires of midnight trucks

Buzz on the concrete strip of Highway 3,

And, through the hemlocks, dark against the fence,

Their headlamps graze the darkness of the lawn.

The whitest peonies are ghosts, and, overhead,

The sycamore weaves gently with the stars.

Shrouded in this scene, lack all moral sense.

Therefore, The Cowboy rises, mounted, from his grave,

The rosebed heaves and, suddenly, spews up

Skeletons: Poet, Soldier, Sailor, Bigamist.

And then, The Cowboy's gunfire rakes the drying shrubs

And kills the cricket's high-pitched music there.

I hail The Cowboy, try calling him by name:

"Cowboy, dismount!" and, swaggering he comes—Spurs

clanking as he strides the terrace stones

And, in the lawn chair next to mine, sits down.

OVERTURE II

A crownéd Jay, late yesterday, in the spruce,

Thumped among the darkest inner fronds,

Furtive to hide some awkward piecemeal thing

Borne between his bright blue wing and bill.

The jay, I guess, screamed once, shrilly in a human voice,

And, then, caught up in sudden gusts of storm,

Vanished in the swirling maples of my neighbor's lawn.

After the great blue bird had flown beyond my care,

I found, clutched to the spruce's inner core,

The Sailor's arm. Then, wildwind tossed the tree

And rain, a rain of stunted pinecones pelted down.

I admit: the day before, I found beside the garden hose,

Stretched out behind the coral bells and thyme,

The Cowboy's thigh, and nearby, in the peonies,

Partly shattered on the grass beside the laurel,

The Poet's head. These hulks were not in marble

Nor was The Soldier's hurt and withering white hand.

Why do they return? I thought these men were dead.

Why do they return! Even this peaceful evening,

Snuffed out below the graceful chaliced rose, I found

The cruel Bigamist's angry black cigar.

ARIA I: THE PREACHER

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here,

At Idlewild, under the porch of the westbound ramp,

Our voices raised above the roar of the incoming jets,

To pray for the souls of stars, Hollywood actors

Cooper and Gable, Gary and Clark—they

Rode stallions though the mountains of our dreams;

And, across this silver screen, ride to a last sunset.

To them, American honors: the Stars and Stripes

Shall be their shroud; our anthem, dirge.

Almighty God, though we walk through the Valley

Of Almighty Death, such shadows we shall not see again:

Gable's gambler smile, taking a Chinaman's chance

With Shady Sal, draw poker, stud, and death;

Cooper's lank limbs' slow stride to set a town in order.

In this urn, their ashes, and something of our tears.

Americans, hear this protestant eulogy and benediction.

The Boeing 707, out there, straining to taxi

Across the runway strips, is ready for flight.

An hour from here, over lyrical plains in the West,

I shall scatter their dust with the dust of roses

And say, "I poet-priest, the right hand of God,

Bequeath these ashes, these roses, to the busted sod."

For I am The Preacher. out West I bless the town

When the Cowboy, wounded, and the sun go down.

ARIA II: THE WAGON MASTER

Lieutenant Hammond, jg, US Naval Reserve,

Retired, a veteran on the old men's list.

I am thirty-six. My papers say I cannot go to war

Unless, unlikely, The President himself shall call

Madmen for defense.

And yet, I am The Sailor,

My mind the sea on which, today, I sail

A prairie schooner, WSW, toward that Holy City,

Santa Fe.

My insanity, it is serene: fascination

To see the color blue, the sea, the sky

And, when most mad, those around me from the Testaments.

I had my training on the Merrimac;

I think we sank the Monitor.

This madness is divine.

ARIA III: THE BADMAN

Of course I keep two wives, one East, one West,

One for the devil's dance and one for the devil's evil.

Bigamist, Badman, whatever my name,

Black Jack I am, I am Black Jack, the same

Rack of a man my father was, a gun

Quick to unload at anyone, a long brag

Of a boy with a girlish face, hands

Ice, lip acurl, a cruel snarl, a curse

Unstrung from my cradle, a marked

Card, a fancy, dandy Jack-in-the-Box, I

Am always twenty-one, I deal the cards, I

Always win, showdown, one-eyed

Jack dealt from below or from up the sleeve,

A fourletterword scratched on a privy wall,

I make you do the things you do

You want to forget, over and over again.

Gunslinger, I lay them all in the dust

And travel. From Cleveland now, to Santa Fe,

Motorcycle motor athrob between my legs,

I race to overtake and undertake The Cowboy,

That chaste man, bride for my silver bullets.

QUARTET: THE FOUR OF US WERE QUARRELING

The Bigamist said, yes, poetry has its use.

It serves at least two amorous ways,

To help some lover grumbling on his bed

Kill time or save it repeating a memorable phrase.

The Sailor said, yes, poetry has its use.

Those who wander far from birth to death

Have many willing guides but none so sure

As the enduring sound of a deadman's breath.

The Cowboy said, yes, poetry has its use.

As good as a gun it puts a town in order,

Establishes peace in the heart's corral

And drives the heart's bandits over the border.

And I, The Poet, I said, yes, poetry has its use.

And I will make it. I will make it plain,

Aspiring to music. Like poets always have,

I will make it from my pleasure and my pain.

ARIA V: THE GIRL FROM THE EAST

Sick of my cubbyhole on Beacon Hill, of Boston and TV,

I rifle an antique chest-of-drawers for clothes,

Put on a long-curl wig, a whalebone skirt, a bonnet,

And prim, proper, pink-fringed sunshade up,

Fly away, in stages, toward the buffalo.

I arrive, made-up, a schoolmarm, a Quaker,

The naive Girl-from-the-East in the West.

My disguise is perfect. Even the U.S. Marshal

Does not suspect—nor the shuffling Hotel Clerk

Who gives me a room, with quilt and stove and bath

Overlooking The Saloon. Yes, I told them,

All my brothers died in the war. A private eye,

And still demure, I sign the register Louise.

ARIA VI: THE INDIAN CHIEF

Betrayed, betraying, I

Walked the lands of my forefathers, loose

And angry, looking for a friend.

White men failed me, even the President

Of these United states, until I

Stood, alone, atop this mesa,

Spread out below me all these canyons

Whose

bends

breaks

rush of currents

rapids

gorges

turns

sharp

and

grand

I knew by heart.

ARIA VII: THE HARVARD MAN

I am a lucky number (after thirteen years

In the graduate school); Philosophiae Doctor

Making 65 (in '62) on the Western Reserve.

Can't ride this horse, can't shoot this gun

(It's the best horse, it's the best gun);

I only look the part. A dude, a dud

(I bought my duds at Brooks;

My saddlebags are full of books)

And parenthetical, pathetic, when The Badman

Draws (highhand) and The Cowboy fires,

I cringe, I crowd to the outhouse floor

(The townsfolk laugh —"What is knowledge for?")

I am over-learned, I know I know

(And knowing how to write, I write this down):

I must be there (aside) in Santa Fe

When The Badman draws and The Cowboy

Fires, for, without me, who could think?

(And the old world could never meet the new).

ARIA VIII: THE SODBUSTER

I neglect my father's grave.

Another winter and the snow

Drifts against the stone

I have not set.

ENCORE: THE OLD PROSPECTOR

Once more I bring the pickaxe down

Amid the rubble of this mountainside.

Years have passed and I, alone,

No longer search to find what you call

Gold. Gold is not worth looking for.

I say I struck it rich in stones.

CURTAIN CALL: THE CAMERAMAN

This poem, a late addition to The Horse Opera, I wrote to commemorate a 34th wedding anniversary, composed in my head while dancing with my wife in the shallow end of a hotel resort pool to the tune of "The Streets of Laredo", in the High Tatras, in Slovakia, where everybody wears blue jeans, jeans jackets and smokes Marlboros.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

30 years and 4 tornadoes hence,

The Cowboy's Mom and the Cowgirl's Dad

Are splitting hairs

About what is love and what is lust

And who will "forget and forgive"

The other first.

Slow fade

As the couple, now grandmama

And grandpapa, settling down

Before a split log fire, embrace.

As the Cameraman acknowledges the applause of a usually

silent audience, someone throws an American Beauty rose at his

feet. He bows, picks up the rose, and exits, stage right,

leaving the audience staring forever at the many ads on the

tattered and torn, technicolored asbestos Fire Curtain.

                                         Štrbské Pleso, 1994