You'll choke on dust, compadre, jawed the piss-
-tolier. On dust, he urged, but what quintessence
Delights that piece of work? Goddamn, girls kiss
Him infinite, their spotty acquiescence
Aligning paint to sun-cracked desert hide.
Saguaros signal loci: mounted in
Inaction like an angel, prickly, dried
And drawn, the parched vaquero gets to sin-
-nin', spittin' terms at speed: ballistic dust
Plus terminal alluvium, his lead
Ingested. Holstered, dustered, scraping rust
From holy pistols, then he rides. The dead
Say desperado, hell, you ain't some kind-
-a demiurge. Well, why'd you laugh then, friend?
2 comments:
Hmm. I know it's been a few days, but I am inclined to edit this nevertheless. Line 5 in particular: "sun-cracked desert hide" seems redundant, and I wonder if more strength can be wrung from this if I write "desert da-da hide," with da-da being some other trochee. (For a while, I had to resist the urge to change "desert" to "beetle"; not sure where that came from.) I am also unsure whether the last line is a cheat, since it's half-rhyme, and whether I should correctly do my hyphenated words - just one hyphen, rather than one for each fragment.
It is beautifully fascinating,and yet, aye, you might want to edit it. Being an advocate of the traditional sonnet, I think it is unwise to end lines with hyphenated words as L1/2,L8/9, and L13/14, though I'd dread to attempt editing this myself, you can have fun with that, heh, heh.
What's the problem with "cracked desert hide"? I am missing it, seems like a good line.
Laden delightfully with significant imagery, it yet intrigues me. Excellent.
The consonance is lovely, L7's "dried" picks up in L12's "rides" with L13's closing "kind"...which noting, er, it doesn't match "friend."
Anyway, I enjoyed it!
Keep 'em coming!
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