byLance Henson
1
- it was a dismembered night
i was hoping to blank out and suddenly be
in denver or oklahoma city with my brothersinstead it was milano
no honor song except the bloated moon
another beeralone
remembering this killing edge of life
every forty two years another cheyenne
filled with genocide and rage gives it up
another beeri walk to a cheap hotel with seated
lions from another age
at the entrancetrying to sleep
hoping to close my eyeshoping its only sleep
2
for ben buffalo*
- on second street
up from the bus station in albuquerque
in the el ray bar i order a budweiserjimmy reed on the jukebox and someone
yells hey man you look like george harrison
shit
i was trying for jim morrisoni remove my sunglasses and he looks away
like i have disappearedi'm always disappearing
these nights are all black moths
moving together in a soliloquy of blood
and silencea dark fevered wind
inside us;pushing us on
into disappearance
7/13/95
*Cheyenne painter, Vietnam veteran, died in December 1994
3
july 14, '95
not wanting the danger
i let the drunk white women talk on and on
wishing patience wasnt one of the bitter
virtues of being cheyenne manshe even takes a hit off my cigar
damn girl i said
i know what you indian men like she saidi dont even know what i like i thought
but i didn't say thatthe starlight falling through this blues bar was enough
robert johnson at the crossroads againi had been there since noon and now it was
ten
once more the circle of lost ones
my palms aching for cedar and prayerbut i paid the cover charge here
my dead uncles paid too
they keep walking in
stepping inside the bodies of other people at the bar
i guess ill stayits what we do