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Cowboy Poetry and Western Verse
The Last Dream
By Delia J Fry
Tumbleweeds roll past boot prints in the dirt
Footprints, staggering, searching for water
They are brushed and fly away like dust
The only evidence of the runaway squatter....
Lost, alone on the afternoon of his death
An old six shooter still tucked in his belt
His horse died five miles to the west
And this is the last hand he's been dealt....
His only dream, to be famous like Billy
So in defiance he made his last decision
Leaving the settled ways of his father
To be the hero that only he could envision....
The old cowboy hat hangs around his neck
As sweat drips down his burning face
A boy of sixteen and on his last trail
And death brings a last hastened pace....
A desert blur, a lone, single rider?
Or a shrub under the shade of a tree
He falls to his knees and now crawls
And a rock cuts deep into his right knee....
Cowboys riding, shooting, alive in his head
Is he now the hero of his deluded dreams?
Yes, he rides hard, to escape the chase
And he is older, around twenty-one it seems....
He's happy he is not a dirty squatter
He's known as Billy Jr., the papers say
Another shrewd, skilled, likable outlaw
His father weeps. He wasn't raised that way....
Cowboy hat, boots and a six shooter
That's what the lone single rider takes
As he buries the young boy of sixteen
And asks the Lord to forgive his mistakes.
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