Sunday, May 01, 2011

The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyville

His eyes were dark as midnight,
His hat was cocked towards two,
His tongue stood still like high noon
While he stood in velvet shoe.

A turquoise scarf hid his jaw,
And silver edged his pistol.
He held his hands down by his hips
Without a word or whistle.

The honest folk turned towards the shops
Where on better days they dealt,
And every child, late at play,
Got drawn in like a belt.

The dusty stranger held his ground
As all the town receded.
Drunkards guessed his dark intent
And bartenders indeeded.

The Sheriff cloaked his gun and badge
And checked his empty cells.
The hangman tied a diamond hitch
While cowboys hid in wells.

Young Ladies slid toward shelter,
While sneaking brazen stares
And stallions tied to hitching posts
Nickered for their mares.

The banker, only, braved the man,
Rubbed his visor and he
Said "You must be a dreadful rogue
To dress so like a dandy."

14 comments:

pia said...

I should have known from the title. You got me all excited as I love westerns, and maybe was subconsciously wanting a great gun battle.
I should have known from the tone and the verbiage but still!!!! And then I took a sip of water just as I got to the last stanza and choked with laughter

Doug The Una said...

Pia, laughter's good on a Sunday. Choking's more of a Monday thing.

tsduff said...

With such a nice descriptive story, it is a shame that all I could visualize was Blazing Saddles.... when Cleavon Little reached for his.... no, not THAT!

What a nice time I had reading your drone. Put a smile on my face.

quilly said...

For some reason I feel like I've been robbed!

TLP said...

"Well, I'm not a hero but this is my town...."

You made it your own though.

cooper said...

I'm with Pia. God bless MT for giving you something to work with.

Oh, no disrespect, but please take Karen back. She is disrupting my blog Feng Shui.

Doug The Una said...

Terry, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Quilly, just your hard drive.

TLP, 2 points for recognizing the town from High Noon. Heck, take 5.

Cooper, and points to you for recognizing MT in the title, although I sorta figured you would. As to your blog's feng shui, we only find our inner blog-beauty when we welcome blog-strangers to it.

Ariel the Thief said...

Terry, I pictured cowboys hiding in wells and couldn't really listen anymore, that was just too funny.

Doug, we know that guys that don't dress in western style either die at the end of the movie or change clothes.

Doug The Una said...

Actonbell, I probably could have picked a better color but that's not really a strength of mine. Thank you for your support on Sea Shanties. I thought I did the right thing, too.

Right, Ariel. It's the Code of The West.

Actonbell, that's from the Code of The East.

FRANC said...

Mahvelous!!!

Jim said...

Nice Doug. I was drawn in real good.

The moral of this tale as I see it is that Bankers rule, even in the early days. The six-shooters placed second except for a few of the notorious bank robbers. Bonnie and Clyde were my faves.
..

k. riggs gardner said...

Laughter's good on a Saturday, too. I would think choking on Monday is optional.

tsduff said...

Rabbit Rabbit big Daddy!

Lara Hoke said...

Rabbit, rabbit!