The Rifleman

The opening’s punctuated by a penis level ejaculation of gunfire;
Sam Peckinpaugh overdubbed a staccato barrage of thirteen shots
From a rifle that could only fire eleven bullets.  Hollywood license.
“A gun is not a plaything, Mark.” says Lucas McCain
As he twirls his eighteen ninety two forty caliber Winchester
Three hundred sixty degrees to cock it.  Deft wrist action
Aided by a round ring welded to the gun to facilitate a feat
As ominous and threatening as a Samurai brandishing a sword. 

“My pa’s the best shot in the whole world,” boasts Mark McCain.
As the camera pans away from the “bad guy” with the gaping hole
In his chest, who in his death throes is vainly attempting to stuff
His intestines back into where they belong,   The camera swings
To Lucas McCain, his arm around the shoulders of his son Mark,
As they walk away, their backs to the carnage.  Lucas looks down
At his worshipful son and says, “I’m sorry you had to see that, Mark."
Another cowboy tries vainly to crawl away, his spine shattered.

 “Are you up for a piece of cherry pie, Mark?” he asks, now
Just a sod-busting rancher attempting to raise a son.  A farmer
Who just happens to be one of the fastest guns in the West.
Living a male fantasy life devoid of the encumbrance of a wife,
With a boy to mold in his own gun-toting, clenched jawed,
Two-fisted, God-fearing image; an instrument of divine justice,
The one man moral code of the frontier town of North Fork
Glowering at the camera as he reloads while striding forward.

He turns to blast the thug who’d fired a shot at Sheriff Micah,
The  broken-down rummy  he’d pulled out of the gutter, buoyed up
And made a lawman of again in a previous episode.  In the world
Of "The Rifleman" men either have to "man up" or die.  The camera
Pans away again so as not to show the widening pool of blood
Seeping into the street.  “Now, off to school, Mark.
Don’t let that fancy schoolmarm from out East fill your ears
With any more of her bleeding-heart anti-gun nonsense.”

Lucas McCain, Moses, the Duke, and the Gipper.  Roles that elevated
Men to North Fork, Mount Sinai, the Alamo  and The White House.
Last I heard of the four, before Alzheimer’s or lung cancer got them all,
They were sitting beneath the HOLLYWOOD sign, passing a bottle
While practicing their legendary marksmanship by shooting at stars.
John Wayne shot at Polaris and missed.  So did Heston and Reagan.
Shortly after Chuck Connors fired, a meteor blazed into the atmosphere.
"That’s how it's done, boys,” he said, flashing  his best television grin.

 Rich Hanson

Mr. Death

You've been a hard man to get to know, Mr. Death.
As a boy you came to me in the guise of a teacher
Attempting to console me in my sob-wracked grief;
Or you'd appear in the holy robes of a preacher
Laboring ineffectively to explain the inexplicable,
The dark,unfathomable descent into oblivion,
In terminology incomprehensible to a child.

As a teen you were my laconic black-leather buddy
Scorning consequences with a James Dean sneer,
Then a dismissive "don't sweat any of that shit, guy;
You're immortal."  From suicide machines to fast cars,
From drunken debauches to drug-induced euphoria
You partied with us; raising a glass to our departed friends
While smugly savoring their testosterone-driven deaths.

After I settled down, married and began to act less selfish,
I began to fear you'd summon me, leaving my family bereft.
You donned an insurance agent's budget rack attire,
Smarmy smile and over the top concern to pressure premiums
To guarantee my family's safety.  Then you became a pedophile
Lurking in the park, a drunk driver careening down the street;
Random evil out there plotting to take my child from me.

Now you've become Time; the cruel devourer of my dreams.
I see lines you've carved upon my face as I gaze into the mirror,
I feel you in my aching joints that used to be so supple;
I hear you in the shrieking whine of a siren in the distance
As an ambulance speeds frantically toward some destination
That I pray is not the home of someone that I love.  If so,
I touch your white parchment skin in a funeral casket.

Mr. Death, I've wondered at you, driven with you,
Dealt with you, feared you, and foolishly tried to outrun you.
I am not ready to let you take me by the hand yet.
I know that there will come a day when you will come for me,
Perhaps in the guise of some dear departed loved one
Whose familiar visage will reassure me as you gently lead me
Into your inescapable realm of eternal repose.

When sickness, loneliness or despair drive me into your arms,
I'll relish the moment when I part the curtain of superstition,
Lift the veil from your head and at last finally view your face;
Something I could never have hoped to see during my life,
But something that I've always both feared and longed to do.
This tumult of experience and emotion that we call "Life"
Is wearing me down, Mr. Death.  Be patient.  I'll be along anon.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.”   

If in death we’d have an eternity to dream,
We’d unravel our tangled webs of existence
To follow each strand of life, each minute action
And its ramifications to alternative lives.
Oh, to have an eternity to purge one’s regrets
And to wander down ‘what could have been’ lanes
That we’d peered down briefly, but moved on past.

 It’s a cruel jest of the Gods to let us just sip

From the cup of life and then wrest it from us.
Our lush, green splendor of youth soon turns crimson,
Then fades, withers, turns brittle and flutters to earth.
Our shell of vitality and being, our blood,
Veins, tissue, sinew and bone all surrender to death
That’s bleak as a winter landscape.  All is finished.

Yet sometimes restless spirits glimmer into view.

 What are apparitions but words and deeds

Charged with an emotional intensity
That transcend the physical bonds of time.
If words and deeds survive us, why can’t the mind
As well wander leisurely through corridors of time?
If in death we’d have an eternity to dream,
Given time we could weave tapestries of triumph
From life’s skeins of despair, and confound the Gods.

I Can't Go Home Again

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
they have to take you in."
      Robert Frost "The Death of the Hired Man"

To have a home, a refuge to return to, was something
That I'd always taken for granted.
As children we played as though our yards went on forever,
The flying exuberance of Tarzan ropes and swings,
Fearless exploration of the nearby woods and swamp,
And the games, from baseball's thrill of rounding the bases
Heading for "home," to the evasive competition of...

"Kick the Can," "Hide and Seek,"  or "Capture the Flag,"
We waited breathlessly for the cry of

"All ye all ye outs in free!"


To return home safely, or in triumph with the flag
Of our opponents in our grasp was the object of our games.
The sanctuary of home was across the street
Or a few blocks away, but we always knew it was there
As dusk descended to put an end to our play.

As an adult, "Home" was still my parents' place.
It was nine and a half hours away now,
But still beckoning me to return, to touch base,
To seek sanctuary, to "kick the can."

"All ye all ye outs in free!"

I'd pull into the long familiar driveway,
Walk up the sloping cement sidewalk, and open the door
To the house my father had built some fifty years ago.
The door opened to permanence, to the reassurance
Of familiar smells, furniture and welcoming smiles.
My bedroom, converted to a sewing room now,
Still retained its aura of a haven of security;
A sanctuary, my return to the womb.

And when I'd step outdoors
The tree in the back yard that loomed over me
Like a protective entity, my dad's shed, his greenhouse,
His garden, indeed, as I grew older
The entire landscape seemed to contract
In order to envelop me with open arms.

"All ye all ye outs in free!"

My parents have moved into a retirement facility,
Having sold their home to a young couple;
Strangers who've usurped my throne of memories
In order to establish their own kingdom there.

Now when I drive past the house at the top of the hill
It no longer exudes that "welcoming" feel.
It seems alien to me.  It has become a stranger,
As are the people now who inhabit the old neighborhood.
I strain to listen for it, but I no longer can hear
The longed for echo of....

"All ye all ye outs in free!"

I can't seek sanctuary there anymore.
The  author of "Look Homeward Angel" was so right.
There comes a time when "You can't go home again."

Duck and Cover

The tense days of the Cuban Missle crisis
Brought us grade school "duck and cover" lessons.
Intimidating sessions; a shrieking alarm,
Bewilderment, panic, then stern orders
From a teacher whose fearful skyward gaze
Frightened us more than the air raid siren,
To "huddle under your desks." 

On the floor, heads bowed, arms around our faces,
We became fetuses again, cowering
Beneath the work benches of our instruction
That we hoped would become our means of salvation
If missles sowed terror, mushroom clouds bloomed,
Then spread their lethal pollen across the land.

The same questionable lessons of survival
Led to Civil Defense Directors; neighbors
With political clout suddenly given a hard hat
With a triangle decal on it, and some semblance
Of authority in a crisis should one ever arise.
They'd be goose-stepping through the aftermath
Of  apocalypse to assure us that "everything's fine,"
And that the flag of the "home of the brave" would still
Proudly wave over the smoldering devastation.

Bomb shelters suddenly became the rage.
You owed it to your loved ones to construct one.
A windowless concrete cubicle soon squatted
In your basement.  "Duck and Cover" family style.
There'd be a string attached to one electric bulb,
A few jugs of water, some packages of K-rations,
Expired Army surplus from Korea, or maybe
V-J day, the war that we won.  There'd be a Bible,
 Some paperbacks, a medicine kit, a Swiss army knife,
A box of rags, old coats, some sleeping bags
And a rifle and some ammo in a locked box.

"It's nice to know it's there," my neighbor would say.
Eventually it wasn't.  Eventullly it became a blemish,
An embarrassment, prompting feelings and fears
Better left suppressed.  Soon relegated
To gathering cobwebs and the detirius of families.
The shelters I know of now serve as root cellars.
Jars of canned raspberrys, peaches, pickles
And homemade salsa jostle for room upon shelves
With Christmas, Halloween and Easter decorations,

Mankind's capacity for destruction has progressed
To where 'duck and cover" won't protect us anymore.
Now we just pray that the unthinkable won't happen.
We've painted over the conctrete bricks of our shelters,
Found other uses for them and moved on with our lives.

Dream-Pedlary

Yes, they do have dreams to buy.
I purchased another one today.
Yeah, I realize that lottery tickets
Are the opiate of the unfufilled,
The 401K of rural white rednecks
Too lazy to set up a meth lab,
Just another tax set up by legislators
Who ought to protect us from such scams,
But this two dollar piece of paper
Gives credence to my fantasies.
It's hope that one can actually hold onto,
Something tangible, a wand one can use
To conjure forth images of wealth.

"You can't dream if you don't play."

I've lived an unhealthy share of my life
In the nebulous world of dreams.
No, not the Theatre of the Absurd
That pervades consciousness during sleep,
Those sickly excretions of the bizarre
That too often twist into something frightening,
Like writhing snakes, their coils
Wrapping tighter around me until I wake,
Gripped by fear, gasping for breath.
No, these are nightmares, not dreams.

No, the dreams this ticket buys for me
Sustain a myriad of visions.  Yeah, I know
That winning a lottery is as likely to happen
To me as Staci Keibler walking up
And whispering "I've always wanted you,
Big guy.  To hell with George Clooney."
It's as likely as electing an honest politician,
Discovering the elusive Fountain of Youth
Or bringing a peace accord to the Middle East.
Still, this ticket will fuel my dreams.

I see myself paying off our son's college loans,
Relocating to a region of my choice, such as
History rich and beautiful Vermont or Virginia,
Buying my wife and me a home in the country
Along a little stream just wide enough to plunk
Pebbles into as we sit idly upon its bank,
My mind weaving nets to catch new reveries.
I see a rare book store, I'm perusing a volume
Of " Death's Jest Book" signed by Beddoes
That the owner has set aside for me.  I read.
I write.  I've finally time to shape my thoughts
Images and experiences into poems and tales.

Yeah, you can say that I'm wasting my money,
But a couple bucks is a cheap price for daydreams.
Your dreams don't have a prayer of coming true
If you scorn them and refuse to pay.

"You can't dream if you don't play."

Holding on to Beauty

It had been a drag-ass day at the law firm,

But it was Friday; the hang up your coat,
Kick back for the weekend goal day.
The baby-sitter had left supper in the oven.
It was time to look in on her five year old son
And invite him to sit down and dine with her.

 When she opened up the door to his room

She gazed upon a world in bloom.

 “Maria helped me gather them,” he boasted proudly,

“But it was all my idea.  I’m gonna have
The most beautiful room in the whole world.”

 Black-eyed Susans peered up from a teddy bear’s lap,

Daisies were arrayed in neat rows on the floor,
Buttercups filled the bed of a red Tonka truck,
With more in his toy box, some taped to the door.
Blue coneflowers waved from an open drawer;
He’d placed wood sorrel on the windowsill.
Atop the desk he liked to sit and read in
Were wild lupine, plucked from a nearby hill.
St. Anne’s lace huddled with wild geranium;
He’d gathered dandelions and didn’t think it odd
To mate them with harebell in another pile, just as
Sweet William from the meadow lay with goldenrod.

 “I would have picked some of your roses, too, Mom,

But Maria wouldn’t let me touch them.”

 “Your room is very beautiful,” his mother agreed,

Thinking to herself of the terrible mess
Of wilted leaves, brittle stems and dropped petals
That Maria would soon have to clean up.

 Indeed, by Sunday evening the leaves had wilted,

The flowers, their colors already less vibrant,
Were petulantly weeping their petals.
The young boy was disconsolate with grief.

 “My flowers are dying,” he tearfully sobbed.

“I’d wanted them to stay with me all winter.”

 His mother put her arms around him

Protectively, wishing that she could shield him
From all the hurt that he’d ever encounter in life.
She wished that she knew how to frame her words
To reach out to console him, to touch him now,
Before his awestruck wonder pales to blasé;
Before the poety of flowers  no longer moves him.

 “When Spring parades its colors,” she finally began,

“Everything’s lovely.  But beauty that’s living
Will always fade.  You can’t grab hold of it
To save it in a cupboard for a rainy day.”

 The young boy smiled weakly through his tears

As he hugged his mother and assured her,
“You’re a living thing, mom, and no matter what,
You’ll always be beautiful to me.”

 The young mother began to tear up herself,

Thinking of the man who had praised her beauty,
The man who had vowed to never leave her.

 He did.

 She knew that her boy would someday leave her

As well, as all sons will do.
They leave the nest in search of a life,
Then a mother’s primacy is replaced by a wife.
It is just the natural progression of things,
As certain as wilting flowers, and death.

 “I love you so much, Ethan,” she whispered,

As she locked him in a possessive embrace;
Wanting at this moment to never let him go,
Wanting so to hold him close to her

 As long as she possibly can.

 

                       Rich Hanson