The Cowboy Crashing Brett Davidson "Diane sumus in fide, puellae et pueri integri. Dianam, pueri integri puellaeque, canamus."1 —Catullus “Come, my friends, / ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.” —Tennyson He is an actor, he is samauri. Where you goin’, samaurai? Leaving Glasgow, going to London. What’s to do in London? Film and be filmed, make money, use money to buy swift horses and ride to paradise, there to join Avalokitesvara, Buddha of Compassion. The West is still Wild, the sirens are calling, a hero is awakening. Carboniferous mountain ranges newly formed erupt devouring Denver. The word paradise comes from ancient Persian and means garden or park Paradise is a moonlit garden In the center of the garden—a statue of Diana Small animals hide under the rue and the rosemary This garden is a place of worship Vital personages are characterized by an instinct for belief Non-believers will never know the joys of paradise Lush-lipped and petulant, Ace Frehley2 lowered himself onto the throne of American Heaven. I go home to my apartment, turn on the TV, turn it off. Turn the radio on, turn it off. Orange light on the walls. Very quiet. All I have to do is sit here and wait. I could get a beer. No. The walls are painted white. I could write a postcard. Might write a letter. Feeling the furniture. Hear my blood moving. Light changing, I remember the smell of the sea. I can feel my life changing. Pluck at the delicate membranes of Memory; oh Memory, wash away me! I am at choice, I am samurai. My spirit awakens to a splash of crime. My camp raids yours and you glorify the sounds of war. Do not celebrate me, cheer for the samurai. Celebrate the one I have chosen—the one we need. Wash away me forever. Here comes the other, forever. Poet, superhero, Adonis, rock star, aristocrat, vandal, aesthete, dandy, rogue, explorer, father, son. Conspicuous blue circles hide penetration on pages of UK porn mags ... blue dots obscure your copulating, sweet prince, but cannot hide your vigor and virility. Your stage name is made with blue dots, your costume is of glitter and oil, you are cool, tough, egotistic, aloof, violent, tender, reckless, exalted, base, glorious. I saw him coming out of a bar marching with prophetic Old Testament pride ... he wore women like the rest of us wear fur coats ... he was smothered in angelic oil, sheathed in leather, paying his way with thunder. He comes from Scotland, California, Texas, Oklahoma Indian shacks, teepee tenements, nowhere ... Satan tempted him and he ate Satan as an appetizer and had Canada for the main course ... a golden romantic off-the-road drifter, a fever-ridden Lord Byron swimming the canals of Venice, charging the Turks and philistines with a six-pack of Mexican beer, blessing the Ganges, killing the roosters and raping the hens, heckling the Trojans, goring the goats, coughing influenza across great prairies, trampling weedy bannana trees, defrosting Babylon, derailing the heavens, dying, dying, balls in a vice, Jaggering full-strut across the USA at the speed of light ... boot snags the Eiffel Tower ... at last the cowboy crashing ... he comes up for air but there is no air... he's a rainbow, a Comanche on horseback shooting arrows deep into minds of generations to come. You—who are no strangers to affliction—count as your own this garden I have made, and call the garden Paradise, and therein find rest. Let life’s dark veils be purged by moonlight. The noumenal moon glows with the color of delirium, and this is what they call education. It changes your life. 1. “In Diana’s trust are we / Girls and boys unblemished. / Of Diana, unblemished boys / And girls, let us sing.” Pagan cults worshipped Diana as the goddess of nature and of the moon. She was also believed to be the queen of hell. 2. Former lead guitarist of the rock band KISS.