those wild western heroes: 1 & 2

those wild western heroes: 1

(dedicated to Dee Brown's The Westerners)

children of the sun

seeking seven cities of gold

behind a half-naked black man

in colorful head feather .

 ambassador Esteban he was

 with a pair of greyhounds running beside

and three hundred Mexican Indian servants, many handsome young women

with Mendoza and Coronado right behind

the obliteration

oh dear poor zunis at hawikuh pueblo

what could you have done

the cleansing had begun

we are all forgotten ones

those wild western heroes: 2

medicine paint Catlin

who broke from them all; his wife, his parents,

to set up an easel for Lewis & Clark

and have an opportunity to view Plains Indians

'in their natural simplicity and beauty.'

beautiful Catlin

determined that the whole world see the American west

most thrilling scene he'd ever seen: meeting Comanches!

and he wanted us to see how thrilling!

but

interested not  the public

the government

 in his collection left rotting away.

no interest they in garnering sympathy

 for the race they would destroy.

for the paint brush that brought a generation 

visual impressions of the American west

who lays in Brooklyn's greenwood cemetery

with black moccasin spirit defending his tomb

  from ugly Parkman who liked his pictures,

wrote the Oregon Trail

followed by thousands,

and ended America.


July 2012