A Variation Upon The Cowboy Junkies' "Black Eyed Man"

They’d had him dead to rights for poisoning the well,

Least wise as far as they reckoned,

His fingerprints all over the pail

(Not the only set, but there in a goodly number nonetheless)

And footprints more-or-less conforming

To his boots in size and tread

And perhaps all that wasn’t stitched up as tight

As the sheriff’s boys would have liked it,

But there were other factors,

Things inferred and whispered

It being a place and time where truth

Was a sufficiently malleable thing

(There was also the testimony of one woman,

A lover, perhaps, or at least in her own visions,

Whose sworn statement was punctuated

With wild gesticulations and shrieking denunciations

As to how the accused had shredded all vows holy and otherwise,

The whole thing close enough to madness

That it was surreptitiously removed from the record)

And the trial was a brief, perfunctory affair

The defense attorney literally in shock

From the cavalier manner his objections were waved away,

His motions for mistrial and subsequent appeal

Disappearing into some void of bored court clerks and paralegals,

The upshot of which was one man

Fitted with an unappealing cravat

Paraded before a sufficient gathering of onlookers

(But a quieter affair than such things normally were,

The harsh cacophony of the cicadas,

String section tuning for some discordant symphony,

Rising above the hum of the attendant mass)

And as the proceedings rambled onward

Towards its unwelcome conclusion,

The guest of honor grimly mused

As to how restoring of the water table and its potability

Would do little to put things to right.

 

Reviews

[Zoe Richardson]

" A place and time where truth was a sufficiently malleable thing." I love that line. I had to listen to this song before reading the poem. I've always liked Cowboy Junkies. I even wrote a poem called 'Cowbody Junkie" but it isn't about the band. In my opinion, she poisoned the well and framed him for it. I also kept thinking about the Woody doll from Toy Story that cried, "Somebody poisoned the water hole!" when you pulled his string. But I"m irreverent that way. This is a very thought provoking write, with sufficiently pointed lines. Well done.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I love the "guest of honor grimly mused"

love the irony of the guest of honor...
Cicadas for the symphony....
quite the scene painted in words,
j.