The Warriors Pathway



Many's the time I've stood alone
gazing 'cross a wind stirred field;
and far beyond, the forrest, where
the shady fir trees grow.  My heart
runs out in search of you-
it's keeper 'till I die.  But I, my dear,
I turn away, following all the men,
war has come beneath the fir trees;
all tomahawks are red with blood.
Now I go where death is,
to fight, the injun way.

I have been where death is;
I've stood and held my ground;
I have walked the warriors pathway-
it's that second when you know
that anothers life was taked,
and it's his blood that stains your shirt.
All along I've though of you,
your eyes and golden hair,
your spirit's on the path beside me,
walking the injun way.

Each long and bitter,  twisted path
leads always towards home.
Sometimes it's not the same one
that you left so long ago.
I returned to long cold ashes,
your sun-bleached bones were scattered
by carrion and the wolves.  I stood
still but my heart was searching,
and came back all alone; my eyes
were dry, I cried inside-
for that's the injun way.

The Lonely Cowboy


Canto 1



There once was that lonely cowboy,
Wandering the high and low
Life that entwines into the dusty road.
He was that one lonely cowboy,
That one you see in all your dreams
About some lonely cowboy,
And, lonely, he rode far.

His dusty face saw the glittery sun
Sparkle on the distant desert all around.
But by night on his back,
His smoky eyes saw all the stars,
Like the dew in a spider’s web.
He felt the transient joys of loneliness,
As he watched the sun rise from its desert pot of molten gold.

Every morning he would stand,
Stretch, then shake from his blanket
The dust of the stars ground into its woven wool.
He saw the glint of wisdom
As he looked into his horse’s eyes.
‘Once more,’ always ‘Once more,’
He said again to that glint of wisdom.

Every morning he would saddle up,
Then ride into that lonely sunset,
But that sunset always pulled away.
He searched for his life among the sands,
The dirt on the grave of eternity-
You might say the desert was pure Hades,
But to him the sun shone cold.

And once there was a lowly maiden,
The kind with whom are made all dreams.
She was running from the sunset,
Running from the coming dark.
She knew her fear was unfounded,
As she wandered the high and low
Life that entwines into the dusty road.

Her pale face was always stained with glinting tears,
They fell like shooting stars
Across the black expanse of her mourning dress.
Every morning the sun would shine cold
Compared to her golden hair.
Every night the moon was warm,
Compared with her pale face.

Every night she would curl up and shiver.
Every night she would die inside.
She felt not her burning desires
She knew not but her hazy memories,
The ones we all treasure most
But forget as time presses on
In the stone cold indifference of life.

Every night she would start to run,
Every night she would collapse in breathlessness.
She would sigh, as the moon and stars
Looked down on her in pity.
Shy would cringe at the darkness all encompassing,
But every morning as she ran on,
The sun was pale before her.

So the lonely cowboy rode towards the lowly maid,
And the lowly maiden ran always towards the cowboy,
But neither knew it at the time.
The dust of eternity was upon their clothes,
The dew of every morning (meager as it was)
Clung to their hair every morning
When they alone woke up.

Everything has an end, so indeed does loneliness.
One morning they saw each other, coming from a distance,
Like a mirage she shimmered before his eyes;
And like a knight in shining armor,
He rode into her sight.  They rubbed their eyes,
But it wasn’t a dream.  In the middle of that lonely desert
Where no one dares to go, they silent gazed upon each other.

Slowly they approached across the sands;
Still she shimmered before his eyes,
But to her he was just that lonely cowboy,
That had been in all her dreams.
She felt as if she knew him, she seen him often so.
But to him she was something different,
Something he had never felt before.

They came within shouting distance…
Then soon they could have whispered.
She looked up into his smoky eyes,
He looked down into her face;
Climbing from his horse, he shook off all the dust
He stood a couple feet away still looking down into her face.
She looked up and smiled kindly.

‘Howdy Ma’am, you seemed surprised,
To find me in this desert.  I assure you
I’m no robber, I always look this bad.’  
She smiled and looked upon his dusty face.
‘Yes, I guess I am surprised, but not at your appearance,
I’ve seen you many times before, though always in my dreams.’
He said ‘That’s been told me several times before.’

‘Where are you going?’ she asked inquisitively.
‘I am riding towards the setting sun.  
Daily I feel it call me on to find something,
Something great I can’t explain,
Perhaps I’ll know it someday.’
Her face clouded as she said,
‘I’ve been running from the darkness all my life.

The sunset always brings the dark,
I fear it worse than death itself.  
Some how it lacks significance anymore,
I feel safe now I’m with you.’
‘Thanks, though I wouldn’t sort
With fellows dressed like me.  Nor feel safe
With them around.’  She scrutinized at him closely.

‘You see,’ he said in explanation.
‘I’ve run away from all my life.
The sun no longer shines for me, no,
Not for a long time either.’  She again looked puzzled.
‘But right there the sun is shining.’
‘Do you think this is a desert?’
‘Yes,’ she said.  ‘Wrong.

This is not a desert.  It is real life,
Though to get here you must first close your heart.
Once its closed you can’t turn back,
At least no one ever has.  To you the world is a desert,
You wander it every day, to me,
The world is all dark, and the people,
But shadows of real things.’

‘That can’t be true, I’ve been here all my life.’
‘No, your life ended when you came,
you’ve forgotten most of all your dreams.
Not the ones you see at night,
But the ones that flit through day.
Now you are lost inside this desert,
This endless plain of scorching sand.

Though it is not hot to me.’
She looked in wonder half-believing,
But she knew that he was right.
‘Why does no one ever return?’
‘They usually kill themselves,
or slowly go insane.’  ‘But you?’
‘I’m too simple to simply die.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ She asked,
And looked strangely at his face;
He opened his mouth and closed it,
No words came out, he smiled,
‘I can’t explain it really, it’s more complex
Than the tongue allows with simple words.
Perhaps you could say I’ve got boundaries.

Do you understand? I won’t let myself that far.
Farther than the mind allows…
That’s why it breaks, I mean when all things fall
Around you, when you lose a thing
To die for.  The mind breaks, oh so selfishly,
When you kill yourself.  I’ve got a thing
In my heart, I can live to die for.’

She looked once more at his smoky eyes,
She wondered if they would clear.
She wondered if she would ever see the stars
Reflected in those eyes, and feel no fear.
‘I understand.’ She bowed her head.
She knew she had nothing.  Nothing-
What an all encompassing word.

Pt. 2

In truth they sat in a small diner,
All alone on a rainy Tuesday;
She a lonely waitress, he-
Just hiding from the rain.
Their conversation had just the gist
Of what I said before;
But they both wandered the high and low.


Her boss had left her for the day,
He’d said something about
‘having a baby’ but she had been too tired
To remember the explanation.
So she wiped the tables circumspectly.
And watched the rain fall pitter-pat
On the canvas awning.

And pitter-pat it truly fell,
Quite soon the noise annoyed her.
Like a hammer and chisel
It tinkered away, confusing
The semi audible thoughts
She fed to her mind, like so many
Tasteless crackers.

Pretty soon she saw a student,
He had a soaking backpack on his head
As he splashed across the street-river.
He burst into the shop like a fountain,
Visibly relaxing.  He took off his backpack,
Running his hands through his hair,
She half smiled and said, ‘Coffee?’

In that way their conversation started.
So innocent at first, it was soon
A full blown confession.
Maybe it was the rain outside
That made their thoughts flow easy,
Maybe they were just so close,
Yet so far apart, and it drew them together.

She was looking at him slightly open-eyed,
He said, ‘I don’t always look this bad.  
Usually I’m not wet.’  She smiled.
The coffee’s odor was like the smell
Of spring reaching over winters edges.
It warmed him as he drank it,
‘What do you do for a living?’  she asked.

‘Oh, nothing really.  I hope.
I have no life really, I study, then read,
Study some more, go to class, read
Then study some more.  That’s my little
Circle of life thing…’  ‘Hakuna matata!’
They both smiled.  She noticed his eyes,
Gray, wreathed in steam from his coffee.

They were softish gray,
The feathers of a little songbird
Poised in the midst of sorrowful song,
Before the last not faded away,
You would see the look in his eye.
Somehow she knew he was in great pain,
She knew it as she knew her own.

‘Did your girlfriend dump you?’
‘Why do you ask?’ he said startled…
‘The look in your eyes, its so far away.
I’ve seen it before… before my friend
Did something stupid.’  
He looked at her in a strange way, his head was
Slightly bowed, but the eyes pierced straight through her.

‘Do you know the reason people kill themselves?’
He asked in a brutal way.  She shook her head.
‘They forget about the world around them,
About their friends, family.  Suddenly
They snap inside.  Nothing matters anymore,
But that feeling isn’t permanent.  If the are
A strong person, they always die.

The weaker mind is afraid,
It is the one that lives on, and on.
People bold in life are bold in death,
Though sometimes it gets mixed around.
Its like when the sun set behind a hill,
And they can’t see through the night.
The mind is too weak for life.

Its like there is a missing piece,
Nothing else can replace, a hole dug deeper
With every breath and every time
You look into the mirror.
Discontent.  Broken.  They die.
But for me don’t be afraid.
I have nothing to die for yet.

When I do, I’ll begin to live.
Right now I’m just a shell of what I’m meant to be.
I’m that lonely cowboy,
Riding towards a distant sunset.’
She saw the truth in his eyes.
She opened her mouth
As the words flowed smooth.

‘I always thought I had something,
Something I could life to die for.
But the sun set on that dream, and now,
Now I seem to fear that dark,
That abyss that holds my only dream.
There was one day it was in my hands,
But I let it through my fingers.

Since that day I have nowhere to turn.
I work and forget, then go home to remember.
That’s my circle of worry.
There is no escape for me.
But you, some how its different with you here,
Secure it seems, that’s my first impression.
But I could be wrong.

No, I can’t be.  You made heart feel warm
When it was winter.  It’s like
This moment was meant to be.
You made me decide on what to do,
You never knew me before,
Nor will you ever, but I’m different
Already in some distant way.

Like you said, my sun went down,
I see now tat it will rise again.
I needed someone to put it in words for me,
It was beyond my grasp, now I clasp it tight.
Realization is a slippery thing-
It kills as wells as it gives life.
I see that the sun sets for a reason.

It takes the cares of one day,
And brings them back wrapped in the beauty
Of a new chance.  I’m at the dawn,
Now I see I always was,
I just needed to let it out,
To want the sun the rise.
It has.’

He was quite speechless I can assure you.
He had finished all his coffee,
He tried to speak but no words came, he asked,
‘How much for the coffee?’  ‘Dollar ninety-five.’
Putting the cash on the counter
He turned and walked straight out.
She thought she saw dust fall from his coat.