Pavane \ Measuring Up

Alan: This poem, admittedly something of a pastiche, treats the death of Wild Bill Hickok through the conventions of 1950s TV westerns, with echoes of the verse I was exposed to in junior high school: cummings’ “Buffalo Bill’s Defunct,” Noyes’ “The Highwayman,” and the ballad, “Lord Randall.”  The soundtrack: Ravel’s “Pavane Pour Une Enfante Défunte,” a piece no TV western has ever used, I’m pretty sure.

Pavane

Wild Bill’s, too,

defunct.

Hear the somber strings’ refrain –

            that sad refrain –

as cellos’ pizzicatos wring unusual rain

on a cottonwood coffin six-man-handled to the browned-off edge of town.

Another blueeyed boy laid down, oh Death,

            laid down.

Terbaccer-chawin’ boy got plugged:

just like some slicked-down tinhorn moon-faced on the old saloon’s

stained, stinking, sawdust-covered boards; the swinging doors still creaking,

            creaking.

Hear that ringing gong-spittoon?

Our man got juiced, my friends,

by Jack in the back: the old poltroon,

            old Jack McCall, poltroon.

But Bill, why weren’t your buds there watching, covering the sneak attack?

Ah yes, I think they were there watching, watching

dealing some different game, some sawed-off, nameless, shameless game,

and then they were watching you writhing,

            writhing – writhing –

a used-up gunman writhing,

a laid-low lawman writhing

your life out on a juice-stained floor.

            (Hear the somber strings’ refrain.)

And now you are bundled away, oh blueeyed son,

            oh handsome young one,

into the tight-lipped clay, oh son,

oh Bill, oh blueeyed Bill,

oh son.  Oh bundled son.  Oh son.

            (That sad refrain.)

Nancy: In elementary school I learned that girls weren’t allowed to play mumbletypeg; in high school girls couldn’t take shop; in college, where I studied archaeology, “we never take girls on the summer digs.”  Ah yes, those good old days.

Measuring Up

As we did

as we all did

measured up

names and dates

on the kitchen door

shoes and boots

carnival rides and

canoe paddles

photos and desks

prizes

sometimes at the

head of the line

sometimes

the middle, sometimes

the end

sometimes the wrong end

we never

take girls

girls don’t

girls never.

Today I look at the bone

they're calling it

Argentineosaurus

and look at the man

lying there, dirty

smiling, measuring

lying there next to the bone, it is longer

than one of the men

really it is longer than two of the men

I would be much

shorter

I look at the bone

and see myself see myself

angry/sad

                              walking away

not

somehow

measuring up