Modern English Cowboy

Skin sheaths sit taught over wire frames
the fedora’d man I stare at through an empty wine bottle shows
fat, fickle chaps that change appearance by the observer
compensate for gauntness of an isolated heart

Unlucky for his desire to remain
inconspicuous, the withering end of his cigarette
fizzles flecks of burning glow to reveal his eyes
the past they breathe like clouds in western paintings
and where they will go

English heroes rely on some degree of myth
now founded in abused substances like ket and coffee
so unlucky for the man through my wine bottle
that black trails bounce through his beard bristles
and his cig light finds them

Myth is part inspired and performative
part hoping that the older myths are true
those who are lost will become found
by someone new who can empathise with scars and a cold face

Heat abounds in the faces of newborns
and the birthing tears never faded from his cheek
there was once a man who cried and hurt
in the fury at others, he punched to compensate for the pain at home
he pained to compensate for the punching

There are indents in his palms
from wheeling his ailed mother
there are indents in his shoulders
from her coddling, fostering
animalistic wildness upon the outside world

The marks of working love do not fade in crises.
Do not fade in crises.
Crises that the locket around his neck implies
and the newer dried river of tears, a mother taken.

A skeleton lady is painted on his jacket
and in the small times of the night, she manifests
heavy as fresh bodies push down coffins
and if this man is a painter, his only results
are practice stains around fingernails, never a finished canvas

She could have been Gaia
had she held the skin to her bone
before the man learned nature had a goddess
wild and free
from a middle-eastern man who became old and white

A tattooed chest
shows the young boy’s dream
to wear a chain-hung cross
from the neck, now obsolete

Dreams do not dissipate
but transform and grow
sprouting buds to leaves to new climates
and to men seen through bottles
they only embroil a life in confusion

I wonder what this man hopes to see
before he’ll will his spurs to rattle
beyond the dilated pupils of his five-o-clock shadow
and towards finishing
a canvas and towards
finding
the new Gaia
he’s failing to realise
won’t form and fall upon him
upon the sweat of a salient brow
but form and rise within him
within the sweat of a silent brow