Wyatt Earp Fumbles
Where once we had words, now our mouths stretch
themselves.. into… clumsy… semaphore,.. unnatural
shapes. struggling. for. meaning. Do you. remember
the card-sharp play of crafty syllables,.. verbs slipped
up. sleeves and. nestling. in. the. necks of loose-laced
boots?.. The. piano. player. stopped.. each. time. you
walked in,.. and the barman slid neat phrases down a
bar that stretched forever, saloon doors swinging like
a buzzard. eating itself... It might have. been distance,
or.. it. might.. have. been.. the.. bullet.. holes. in.. my
embroidered. waistcoat,. but. all. the. world’s a. stage
leaving a. one-horse town,. and. though my jaws. flex,
stretch and ache,. all sound lies dead in the high noon
dust.
Oz Hardwick is a poet, photographer and sometime musician, whose seventh poetry collections, Learning to Have Lost, was published in 2018 by the International Poetry Studies Institute, Canberra. Oz leads the Creative Writing programmes at Leeds Trinity University.
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