ace cannons cannon

a gunslingin' hero from my early teens, the great American novel i never quite wrote

 

ACE CANNONS' CANON 

Through the morning, shimmering with colors that wavering, fade

from a desert where heat is a hue, and history's due

cactus and trees, knotted and sparse, a portrait some mad god must'f bade

into being, into the "Otherwise Sane"; set apart from the world, lived in by you

dust lays 'pon the ground, puffs upwards with resentful complaint

as my mount plods onwards towards some tumbled town

Town? 

a few homes, in a land where grown men could grow faint

weary, thirsty, sweat-soaked; riding, walking, falling, down

down...

town

Ace Cannon's my name, should anyone ask

you may have heard, or you may not

at times that's quite a task

as i'm found wherever battles are fought

and those who stay behind

are often quite dead

they thought, or they didn't, or dint really mind

that those men who pushed, cursed, threatened with lead

disrespected ladies, dint tip their hat, just hawked and spat

raped, robbed or rustled, or horsethieved from towns

and thought to back down the good folks with that

more often than not, were buried with smiles,

 'stead o' frowns    

i'm a gunslinger, in the olde sense of the word

a hard man, a good man, a gunman, driftin' along

light as a feather, fast as a bird

i enjoy playing, Guns' melodious song

"abandon all hope,all ye who hear,

with nary a sound to accompany fear. 

the blackbirds are singing, as i draw near;

the tumbleweeds roll, as leather i'll clear"

a few townsfolk stroll from home to store

a few, even this early, stagger from saloons to squint

as at last, i ride past houses, where happy people live poor

 knowing each other, when last year they dint

a traveler, through beauty and badland

worthy of trust, friend of strangers in need

dangerous at times, yet loyal to brand

the code of the west, that noblest breed

a stranger, hatbrim pulled low, all dust and sweat

a horse noble as Knighthood, and muscled in trailwornest tan

this was "the West", that hadn't quite yet

met the Man

Ace Cannon

-esquire-