Cheyenne of the Mind

by John Bennett
62 pp, Perfect bound
Sebastopol , 2004
Cover by S. Mutt

WRITING IN STONE

He thought he could out-wait the dawn. He thought he had a hold on the setting sun. He drank wine with brooding leprechauns out back of the Italian's cantina. He wrote it all down in stone.

He was a word tripper. A one-way ticket. It took him so long, but he found out. He was
a creator of fictions.

There were accents and elocutions. A fuse box of copper. A dime in a pocket in the
laundry basket, dreaming of spin dry.

In the dark he pushed PLAY and a green light came on. Toy cars commenced to whir over the throw rug. He was the only one in the whole house awake. He felt pneumonia creeping thru his lungs like a stalking cat.

***

These observations are not all that easy to capture. Just the right mind set is called for. He did it while the sun was in hiding, thinking to net it when it next showed its face. He did it on yellow pads with a Bleistift, something he picked up passing thru Munich . Some thought he needed lock down, huge pink pills or the ax, but before anyone nerved into action, he broke out like a rash, a cross between a pox and the scurvy.

***

There are always problems, said some hairless psychotic with credentials — that's how we know we're alive.

He took that and nailed it high up on a fence post, out west where no one went anymore. A pestilence broke out shortly after, but no one made the connection.