th Walking Cowboy
walked
didn't own a horse
didn't know wut a horse wuz
never saw a horse ever
thought a saddle wuz some sort of way to be sad
an harness th state of mind or presence at th
singular moment within
th beginnig of hearty
laughter
HAR!  HAR!  HAR!
but he did suspect that bridle meant to somehow
restrain something
th Walking Cowboy didn't even tie his shoelaces
he wore boots!

th Walking Cowboy cldn't be stopped
even suburbs failed to deflect where
once th open desert stood
he cld walk thru block
didn't even crack a window
burglar alarms never went off
an it wuz pretty disconcerting
to find him sitting in yr living room
watching Lawrence Welk
th Walking Cowboy loved watching Lawrence Welk
something about th bubbles
an th way they touched each instrument
in the orchestra
like a kiss.

th Walking Cowboy walked down streets
turn lanes     dividers
walked thru palm trees     yucca masses
sick sahuaros
traffic stopped it ground to a halted
silence
it did
like years ago
th colors of a sunset
a spectacular traffic halting raging sunset
th Walking Cowboy walked down streets
he did as flowers fell
ghostflowers to be sure
neverstruck pavement but real
colors they fell in waves
lupine     lobelia
delicate red racemes of penstemon
fiddleneck in twirly hairy yellow spirals
globemallow a thousand tiny cups
spotted coral root from th deep forest floor
monkey flower     columbine
sticking out thr wet tongues
seeping cracks inna canyon
foxtooth ookow
poppy     snakeweed     rabbit brush      charlock
verbena in umbel clusters
groundsel     jewel flower     mullein      fennel
fleabane daisychain rolling fall
bloomrape     coyote mint
puff balls of teasel
cold upper sky
collapse onto heated
heated pavement
boiled up th hot air
drew flowers round an round
a bedecken
a carousel
suddenly it all ended
th Walking Cowboy reached th freeway.

th Walking Cowboy
wuz found face down
all over town
face down by an abandoned car where
a soil-cemented dryriver runs along th
Auto Mall
face down in parking lots - taking up several spaces
face down on blast walls ringing th base
face down in front of th empty lumber yards
face down before Art Billboards
face down beneath grey squalor interchanges
face down in th homeless camps by a river flowing with
effluent - at least still green
face down in reflective office complex
rearview mirrors
yes, everywhere th city smelled of a ghost rot
spectral buzzards perched atop parked cars
no one cld move them, cld face the cold eyes
a few days later he wuz gone a white dust
remained so people went back to thr jobs
they went back to savin' for Japanese knives
some forgot, but others didn't
u cld hear them exclaim in bars an groceries
"wuzn't that Walkin' Cowboy sumpthin?"
yes, they'd say it
"wuzn't he sumpthin else!"

So I'm working at this site
It's nine o'clock break
Here comes th Roach Coach
Well M is driving it
I'll be damned!
When'd she get this job?
I go over to say hello
As I get there this wiry little guy
Comes up exposes himself to her
Seems he has a butterfly
Tatooed on th end of his dick

( Does it turn into a B-52 bomber, or justa Piper Cub? )

An one testicle
Th guys bet him twenty bucks
He wldn't
She's standing holdin' change in front of th Twinkies Lookin' sorta blank

"Does this happen every day?" I ask

"I don't know, this is th first."  she answers

Th guy kinda embarassed is collecting his dough
We all go back to work.

th night I saw Ted DeGrazia takin a shit in th middle of
Speedway Blvd...I'd been drinkin...yeah, but...mescal...sure...yet...
th other guy ate th worm...an I drive east wanderin lonely heated
no respite asphalt daysoftened dustcloud empty streetlamps crossing
Alvernon a palo verde beetle lands on my arm with a yell I fling it
into a telephone pole an then...over here...where th ghost of th
Midway Drive-In looms pale memory above th security lockers, there's
Ted squatting down laying dry yellow coyote turds along th left turn
lane his huge flacid cock dragging th roadbed.  it wuz awful.  I slow
down an pull next to him lean out an he looks up eye sockets
swarming with fat roaches...millipedes dribbling from his thin baked
lips.  he'd been drinkin too, I cld tell.

y Ted?  y?  y th blank-eyed cutesy brown children staring out soft
colored parchment grip of grey grinning valley turqoise encrusted
dozerbreathed death camp skull?  o Ted, y is Tezcatlipoca such a
lame bastard?  Sixty million dead Ted!  they clearcut a forest to
crucify them, lit fires under their feet as they hung there!  where's the
blood Ted?  where's the river of life?  y Ted, y?

suddenly a roar an evil laughter behind us as a souped-up squeaky-
clean jeep full of golden short-haired baggy-shorted frat clones bears
down full speed high intensity beams blinding me...

Ted!  watch out!

I gun my car to th roadside, Ted stands pulls off worn snake-skin boot
revealing shining metallic claw an with a nimble little hop he side steps
th jeep spins round an rips th fucker eyeball to asshole an amid twisted
auto wreckage an steaming intestines he screams

EL CON!   ELLLLLL CONNNNN!!!!

I'll never forget that night it wuz like seeing Jesus...yes, I believe maybe
...yes, it wuz.

     Are you related to the Al Beaver family from Dallas, Texas?
We was neighbors back then, Al and me.  I think he had a boy named Bill,
born after the war, say 1947.  Maybe that's you.  Al always wanted his son
to work at a big outlet store.  Many a time Al would say how it would do
him proud if his son got a job at an outlet store....Oupee

     Yeah, Bill did it - made his daddy proud - works at a big outlet store
- his bosses love him for his precision and neatness - clothes on racks
stretching in orderly ranks like an army on parade - boxes on shelves at
angles sharp as a knife - when he found a new way to display video tapes
he was made an assistant manager...
     Bill looks out into the twinkling consumer distance and his mind is
like a giant soft pretzel, round and smooth and warm but encrusted with
sparkling crystals of cubic order - yeah, he did it, he made his daddy
proud....