beggar's run

 
I was tired, more tired than death. but I had to drive hard, & the
lonely highway wouldn’t get any lonelier. nights like these, I was
too weary to saddle up, so I’d lay on my back & tell my whore,
‘crouch & stoop.’

I’d get the old gang back together, what was left of them. Bill had
been gunned down, ambushed as he left Rosa’s Cantina. at least
he had a spicy last meal. Rusty Lopez had served five years in the
Army, he’d be ready to desert..

Krater’s term at ‘Quentin was due to expire, he’d be skittish as a
wild pony to return to his mean ways. the others were in hiding, I’d
send word thru the outlaw’s grapevine. resurrection of the fallen,
you could call it, a harvesting of weeds.

there’s a woman who rode with us, & the wheels didn’t matter:
Harleys, or a squadron of black Ford 500’s, or the old green pickup.
her name is Gypsy, the only name for a woman like her.

she could handle a shotgun or a Glock like a lover in bed, with that
same finesse. men paid good money to be murdered by her, ‘cause
they never felt like a victim.

I meditated on her, how she tempered my fever & broke my heart,
while I did time in Skid Row. it was where the lawmen didn’t come,
they knew the payoff was a shiv in the back.

the days tallied up as I hustled a few dollars, mostly it was a juke full
of sad songs & whorehouse blues. but now I pondered a mordant
future, gathering my band of thieves & assassins.

so I cruised hard in the weeping wind & the mournful rain, to Gypsy,
to take her. to love her, whatever love meant to outlaws like us. her
beauty & rage beckoned me on.

it was time for war
and I wasn’t gonna beg any more…


(Artist unknown)