Sample Poems by William Baer
The Ballad Rode
Into Town
The ballad rode into town one day,
wearing his deadly gun,
and his Mexican spurs jingled along
in the heat of the mid-day sun.
He wore his blacks, he wore his boots,
he wore a Colt on his hip,
with a re-bored barrel, its trigger filed,
and a custom black-butt grip.
He'd come across the desert heats,
like Dante through his hell,
over the mesas, day and night,
through the sage and the chaparral.
Right up the only street in town,
he and his Morgan came,
as the free-verse rummies scattered,
and slithered away in shame.
But at the saloon, the rondels came out,
with the pretty villanelle,
"Now, that's what I would call a man--
a man with a story to tell."
And even the gambler couplet agreed,
"That's a mighty heroic chap,
who'll face them alone, and fire his Colt,
with the crack of a thunderclap."
They followed him past the Sheriff's door,
abandoned back in June,
then passed the burned-out Weekly Press,
in the silent afternoon.
The ballad rode into town that day,
wearing his deadly gun,
and his Mexican spurs jingled along
in the heat of the mid-day sun.
He rode his Morgan up the street,
and stopped at the only birch,
where all the decent blank-verse folk
were coming out of church.
"Where is she?" he said and waited,
under the Texas skies.
"I'm here!" the lovely sonnet called,
and lit up the rider's eyes.
"They've terrorized this western town,
and bullied us all, my dear.
So set things right and proper,
then take me away from here."
Right then, the critics gang rode up,
a motley crew of thugs,
with .38s and rifles cocked
with lethal dum-dum slugs.
Quickly, the fearful crowd dispersed,
to hide and watch and wait;
the gang boss sneered, "Any last words?"
as he aimed his .38.
But the ballad blew a bullet hole
right through the de-con's eye,
and dropped the freud and marxist crits,
and then the gender guy.
There were, when his chambers were empty,
six dead in the Texas heat;
there were, when he holstered his .45,
six thugs on the dusty street.
And when the celebration peaked,
Miss Sonnet reappeared,
and she and her man rode off to the west,
and even the rummies cheered.
So the ballad rode out of town that day,
still wearing his deadly gun,
and his Mexican spurs jingled along
in the heat of the mid-day sun.
Amnesiac
They found him in an alleyway
lying in the Delta heat,
concussed, unconscious, nearly dead,
not far from Bourbon Street.
Thirty-or-so, nicely-dressed,
he couldn't remember a thing;
he had no wallet, no watch, no scars,
and he had no wedding ring.
His past was a blackish empty pit,
"Who am I?" he asked the nurse.
"Someone who needs a lot of rest,
or things could get much worse."
But no one called the Nightly News
when they flashed his handsome face,
and his fingerprints drew a blank
in the federal database.
Trauma to the temporal lobe,
which would, of course, explain
the retrograde amnesia
in the cortex of the brain.
She read about him on the web--
amnesia.com.
She quit her job, and packed her car,
and hummed the 13th Psalm.
She drove from Vaughn to New Orleans,
planning their rendezvous,
then bumped his arm in Jackson Square,
"Excuse me, how are you?"
She looked into his pastless eyes,
he looked back vis-a-vis,
and then they promptly fell in love,
as prompt as prompt could be.
Three months later, they sat in the square,
thinking that love is blind,
"You always understand me, love,
but there's something on my mind.
"I've wondered," he said, "if we've met before,
back in my previous life,
and, more than once, I've wondered as well
if you're my loving wife?"
She smelled the white magnolias,
and felt the river breeze;
she looked at the French cathedral
and heard the rustling trees.
"Two years ago, and this is the truth,
and what I've left unsaid,
they found me on a Tulsa street,
and thought that I was dead.
"I woke in the county hospital,
but nothing was ever the same,
my past was a blank and empty pit,
and I couldn't remember my name.
"I've got no memories--not a one--
no mom, no dad, no sis,
I never went to church or school,
I never got a kiss.
"I have no friends to call at night,
I've got no favorite song,
I've had no plans, no hopes, no goals,
until you came along.
"And now that I've finally found you, love,
I want the present to last,
but I fear that hellish yawning pit,
and I hate the filthy past.
"But, dearest love, the past is past;
the wife I want is you!"
Then he flashed a brand-new diamond ring,
and she smiled and said, "I do!"
So they held each other contentedly
within the falling light,
then rose together arm-in-arm
and walked through the Delta night.
Not hearing the footsteps, subtle and soft,
that followed them through the park,
the ever-patient ominous past
creeping along in the dark.