Cowboy

[incantation]

I struggle to read, write but sign
My name on lightning with
A dream after following the condors
Flight. Winds incarnate my horse
As he sleeps near the fire, we
Passed flaming indian reservations
Whose fire didn't reach and trespass
On newly laid train tracks, perhaps Comanche spirits could lead me to wilderness of tears without faces as the wind horse races with time's arrow to
Prevent fire, genocide. Blacksmiths
Hammering myths on times anvil.
The red sky reflects wound from
Civil war, clouds like shadows of those who were about to die, photographs
Cannot capture sound of moon
Resting on devils tongue, annexing dreams painting them red, where
Are they hung, pictures of those
Young and dead, allure of monotony,
Diet of beef, cattle trail run
Across states, five dreams within
A dream, empty barrels of a gun.
Bullets call from the vast spaces
Of the plains. Night winds
And those in dreams never meet,
Unmarked graves from
The war will never be found
By kin. When will my hands
Rise from the river of time
With mirror reflecting faces in wilderness of tears and final drop of blood, can an arrow heal a wound?.
Last rains fall of definitive west
Onto wings of sleeping bird
Who will wake for first kill, who
Will rise from mirror of
History with quill dipped in indian blood,
Sound of blood breaking glass.
Horse takes drink from midnight
Stream, deaths bullet disguised
As a dream, ghosts of dreams pass, will condor
Hover as I am laid in earth,
Last rain to fall on eyes of cowboy.

[Terry A]

The poem keeps with your great talent in breathing life into imagery;  I find some of the line breaks awkward and not contributing to the reading.  Bullets never “call”  -too gentle a word.

A poem, sweeping across history, like a hundred snapshots. The final lines smack of prescience, though I am unconvinced of accuracy, for going from the general to something so specific is challenging without prior foreshadowing For history sweeps almost all in its wake and ‘last rains fall of definitive west, says just that. 

 

[Terry A]

The only thing I know of cowboys comes from movies. And the plight/history of the indigenous people of Canada has become all politics and agenda, bleeding sympathy away almost deliberately. We are not responsible for things we had no part in.

But a poem is a poem is a poem. I usually only comment on poems in which I feel I have something to say. Most, nowadays leave me speechless.