remington
their breaths like bandits upon the frosted air
their hair blown barrel chested to the wind
to the wind they rode
and as they rose the westward cline
where indians lay in wait
near naked and with bows and stones
to dash against the massive bison foe
both fear and love were in their souls
so mangled and wiry thin they carve the air
with plaintive sculptured clouds
that even now are craven on the air
like crows
or like the songs, the jaws of jays and jacks a skrikin' do sow
and so reprimanding as old bones do
their colour bleached by frost and sun
thin threads of hair a blowing on the barrel chested breeze
meander here and there among the sun pecked rocks
where dust and weed are king and queen
i heard them speak in colours rare
and finer than the sun in all its brightness paradigm
regaled upon a piece of cloth
and by its rough caught lines
i was one of many witnessed to the contest of line and space
where volume is but a surface
touched with pigment and its anti node
it rendered those actions of the past
in stark deserted truths
sublimated and distilled
to calculated stains upon a morning
and of those many witnesses
some saw and were impressed as if this was the truth
and others liked the deftness of the tale
and but a few left suspecting
it was but sentiment and balladeering
anow commoditised within the hallowed halls of art
and sold in replicants upon the stalls that harnessed to its horses
dragged the gallery across once sullen landscapes
and on to hallowed peerage
and sanctity
among the relics of the past
Fred Remington , [see carter museum, fort worth, texas ]
Fred Remington"