Wayne Hogan
A COWBOY’S LARGER MEANING OF DOWNTOWN L.A.
While listening to
Robert Hardy read Wells’
War of the Worlds on cassette,
it came to him fast, like
the quickened gallup of a
range-weary palomino, that writers,
they mostly believe they’re here
to be wisdom’s conduits, here to
say things that’ll give a heart
solace, a mind high flights
of fancy, give a whole populace
the most demographically wide-spread
prosperity possible, think they’re
here to teach us love’s three
sweet mysteries (the why and how
and best time of day to die
a dignified drunk in downtown L.A.),
share with us the larger meaning
of a largely meaningless life
they say is ours, short of a
good fit in cowboys’ boots.
But nary one wise word
is heard as to the efficacy of a
steaming broad-brimmed bowl
of kidney beans, a great big huge
wedge of hot-buttered cornbread
cooked barely above a just-right flame
flickering, like cactus made of
fireflies, in a little tucked-away
New Mexico mesa where the sun’s
just gone down.