Spurs on Hemlock

Driven by a rawhide vertebrate, when a stranger walks in
A saloon thick with the stench of creosote and sin
He’s gauged them all before a tumbleweed does a
360 on spilled blood of the not quick enough…
Check the man in the back who’s asleep, awake with
The brim of his dust covered hat pulled down all the way to the neckline
And an empty bottle of fill-in-the-blank spinning like a propeller
On the rough surface of a table that’s seen more than one man’s dreams
Soaked into its skin and then dried again
There’s a saga wedged deeply into each fold of skin that makes up the
Stranger’s thumbprint and you can almost make out a dreadful melody
Carried on the quicksilver thread that sends bullets stitching through
A room full of fleshy, empty canvas
The smoke from the barrels rises to the timber-framed ceiling

And the tumbleweed tumbles on…