Running Dog (R) (NPM 17)

[Frank E Gibbard]

Running Dog massaged his tanned body

stood tepee high looked at his wiry frame

reflected in a glass, caressed the cheeks

of a wholly proud plains bred Native arse.

 

Young and athletic his muscularity honed

and bronzed by the sun of Oregon. Sweet

oils ran down his burnished thighs in yellow

rivulets drips easing inside toes of mahogany

brown and weariness of recently worked feet.

 

Running Dog was a true brave you could say,

without reservation, in the whitemens' badlands

today had given his stack to the contact known

as "ill-eagle" for his toke, now is time for R & R,

high time to make smoke. When Running Dog

was dog tired his solution: peace in communion

with a pipe then hit town for buffalo wings mm..

(not ashamed he loved them) for the munchies.

 

He towels his abs dry with little dabs, eyes the

waiting stash, wonders what father Sitting Dog

would think knowing how he spends his cash.

He liked to think that Pop would not blink nor

sniff at a little spliff, imagined him there in his

favourite chair blowing marijuana all around

as he exclaims that since I came it's the best

shit I've found ever in the Gods' hunting ground.

 

Floor walking in their casino then pumping iron,

squat-thrusts fit to bust - how he maintained his

toned native appearance front of house thrilling

old ladies (ooh you look so Indian!) boy did he

need a smoke and we are talking a mother lode

of Nature's best. He gave utter respect into this

habit, was like his tribe the first greens, and cool

with the planet. Brave he was indeed he still had

to watch out for palefaces in blue uniforms riding

around after our hides. Ha! braves making smoke

America's Finest seeking scalps in the name of a

so-called freedom, he hoped his ancestors might

see the joke. Signalling nothing ever changes in

our history except the particular cause of a panic

it rearranges those deck chairs on the SS Titanic.

　

[Benjamin]

A well produced sardonic update on the demise of the “noble savage”. The in-line rhymes work well and your words “nothing ever changes in our history” prompt me to think of past European “discoverers” of different lands; who came upon women laundering clothes by rivers... and native communities with established cultures predating their own. All prior to the tsunamis of social “progress”.

[Tinker]

Hi Frank, I just love the opening stanza. It totally sets the tone and grabbed me in. Loved it.

 

~~Tink

[Frank E Gibbard]

Thanks Benjamin and Tink.

[dr_con]

Dense and fascinating social commentary. I dig it Frank!

 

;-)

 

Juris