Search For Posts

April 16, 2022

Tumbleweed




drifted into town like an unwanted tumbleweed
wearing the dirt and dust of a squandered life

sand in my sandy blond hair

nobody wanted to even look at me

useless tumbleweed they thought 

- blowing down the street; Drift!


I wasn’t one of them, in fact I didn’t know what I was

matter form function, a specimen on a slide

but I wasn’t one of  them

this was a town of 10,000 towns I’d been in before 

no Xanadu or Shangri-La

had a cheap breakfast and some strong coffee 

a waitress named janelle

with her honeys and babys and sugars 


walked around and sat downtown for a while

but there was nothing going down, the gold rushers had come and gone

blues in black & white photos 

who brought their pick-axs, pans worn with fatigue 

treasure maps leading to a secret mine 

that nobody can ever find

a few hit it lucky but most came back empty-handed

with broken backs, broken spirits or both

some didn’t come back at all


no, I was 125 years too late and I didn’t think 

to bring my gold mining equipment anyway

anyway, that was a long time ago…anyway 

here goes the tumbleweed on the loose again

experiencing what wanderers feel just tumbling along 

leaving town before sundown