When I was a Blue Cowboy

I remember when I 

was a blue cowboy,

waving red flags 

at the marshall.

Assigned to shoot my pistol

at aliens and strangers.

I danced inside a sandstorm.

In sunset boots, I kicked the dust

and walked for miles

in sightless storms,

in search of the horizon

I remember when I

was a blue cowboy,

eating my bully beef

or no doubt something like it.

My teeth cracked sand as

I watched, for I was watchman.

‘Kill or be killed’, they said,

as we lay back and 

listened to the near and far.

And shooting stars broke the sky

and pummelled mother earth.

Dead-ringers were my conradres,

in moulded forms 

and disappearing coats.

The desert couldn’t choke us

but fate was duly swallowed,

as one by one they whistled

an ever distant discord.

The echo of a cowboy

in sempiternal blue,

buried only in suspension

in the hinterlands of time.