I caught out, haggard, from Lincoln County
with a pretty price on my head.
A whopping five-hundred dollar bounty,
alive or chock full of lead.
See, me and Charlie, and Chavez, and Tom,
we’re forged for a life under fire.
But Governor Wallace strung us along
with a pardon that never transpired.
Said the judge, You’ll hang till you’re dead, dead, dead,
swinging like a courthouse bell.
And to that, I spat, met his eye, and said,
Sir, you can go to hell, hell, hell.
So I popped my cuffs and gave ‘em the slip.
That meal wouldn’t be my last.
With a fresh Colt Cavalry on my hip,
I fled, singing, Kiss my ass.
Now I roam to run on that open range.
I drift from town to town.
I’d cut my hair, and take on a new name,
but I’m a little too famous by now.
With one in the chamber, I ride by night.
I shrink from the gaze of the day,
knowing my lot in this life is to fight,
yet I still wouldn’t trade it away.
-- Alexander Ross is an American yeoman formalist poet.
