Saturday, April 28, 2018

SNAKE EYES AND BOXCARS


  STAGGER LEE AND BILLY D’LYON ON EARTH AND IN HELL

1.

No game on earth
quick as craps

dollars down
dice tumble
points made
or not
but
money
grabbed up.

Players best be
sober and sharp

that night
under a street light
and yellow moon

Billy D'Lyon was

Stagger Lee
was not

and when they were done

Billy adjourned to the bar-room
with a handful of greenbacks
and Stagger Lee's brand new Stetson hat.

Couple things quicker than craps -
crazy and bullets.

Stagger Lee steps into the bar-room
calls, "Billy, yo…"

Billy
hands up palms out
says, “Oh, no…”

Smokeless .44

Stagger Lee shoots poor Billy down

Billy clutches at air
slams
against high gloss mahogany
slumps
to dirt black
scuffed black
heel gouged
bar room floor

neck on the rail

hat pushed away

one eye ball
from half his head
staring straight up to nowhere
all glassy and dead.

Stagger Lee drops the .44
retrieves his Stetson
dusts its brim
walks out those swinging doors
and steps right up, ladies and gents,
to the scaffold gallows
like it was church
on Sunday morning –

‘Scuse me, sir
Howdy, Ma’am
Wouldn’t want to be late, Reverend

Stagger Lee
looks down at his boots
bows his head
when the hangman takes his hat
and thinks -

Ain’t nothin’ finer than a Stetson

Ain’t nothin’ colder than this cold wind

Ain’t no forgiveness till hell freezes over

And there ain't nothin' slower
than this goddamn trap door…


BAM!


2.

Billy D’Lyon
half  his head
blowed away
did not go to heaven

Whoever thought he would?

Bill dropped into hell

Stagger Lee

dropped

into thin air

and just as fast
ended up in hell
as well.

Heaven…Hell
Earth between

time’s a funny thing

Billy might’a been gone
a New York minute
but
in hell-time
that was a life-time

and in hell-time
Billy made a big name
for himself.

The devil that cheated
and beated
Stag O’Lee
owned
the biggest
most ornate
and prosperous

saloon whorehouse and gambling den

on the cold gray plain of Hades.

Through Billy’s
swinging doors

inscribed as of old -

(abandon hope… the house always wins)

neck-stretched
adam’s apple bobbing
bare headed

Stag Lee steps in

and steps up

to a green felt table
in time
to watch flames
fly
off a hot set of bones
ricocheteding
from wall to wall
through all the constellations

snake eyes to boxcars

and back up
into
the
diamond flash
right hand
of one -

Billy, a.k.a.,  Hell’s D’Lion.

Mr. Lee aims a look at Billy

recognition, of course, on both sides

grins

lays his money
on the no-pass line

Billy half-grins back
and the roll does commence

Bill huffs steam-engine heat
to warm those ivories

tombstones clack
in Bill’s big right hand

Hell time shifts
into strobe time

Flash!

Billy’s arm and hand
swing under and up

Flash!

Bill’s hand opens
dice fly

Flash!

dice hit the table

(close up)

tumblin’ dice

Flash!

time
converts
to
time

and sure as

4 plus 3
5 plus 2
6 plus 1
all
equal

7

Stagger Lee

flips out
and

Flips!

that table over

Fuck you, Billy D

says
Stagga Lee

your crooked game
has come to an end

reaches for his smokeless .44

but Mr. Lee
lost that gun
a million years before

Billy
just smiles
with his whole half face
removes his gray felt Stetson hat

kindly says

Take this back, Mr. Stagger Lee
you’ll have no argument with me

Hell begins to freeze

specters realize
this was no fight man or ghost
would ever win.

Stagger Lee and Billy D’Lyon
all of a sudden
best-of-friends
hearty hale and arms-around
step up to the bar
 drink some fire water down

Stagger Lee gulps forever
adam’s apple jerkin’ like a monkey on a stick

Billy D. loses half his drink out half his head

Hell freezes over

time
like one late die
tips

click

and that is the story
of Stagger Lee & Billy D’Lyon
on earth and in hell

Amen.

RW/Seattle/Oct 2012-April 2018


(skull dice:  belaa; "diamond" dice:  swarovski)









No comments:

Post a Comment