🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tuesday, December 29, 2015 at 7:29:32 PM UTC-5, Bill Evans wrote:
> "Will Dockery" <will_dockery@outlook.com> wrote:
> > Hello Bill, I've got to run for a while today, but here's a later version of
> > this poem done in a stage production with music, that shows how the words
> > you mentioned are finally discarded:
> >
> > The Ride (Combat Zone) / Will Dockery
> > https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/video/13999554
>
> I'll be better able to contemplate the poem when I see the
> words written down, but no hurry.  I ain't going nowhere.

Hello Bill, this seems to be the last of the revision/rewrites of this poem.

Note that "skirt of printed sunflowers" has become stable by this point:

The Ride (Combat Zone) by Will Dockery:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheRidecombatZoneByWillDockery

Driving through the combat zone
a Rasta steps out
sort of calling my name
a reasonable approximation.
Variation of my street name I guess.
Said he could take me to see Raine
apparently the Rastas have her
locked up in a house
somewhere in the Combat Zone.

Girl of these woods and chemicals
we labor for the black pigs of poetry
for the bone gods of the sea
for the secret rose you keep for me
under the skirts of printed sunflowers.

He wanted money for his information
at which point I was to park and walk.
It seemed very sinister
the thought of Raine held prisoner
But he smoothed it over fairly often.
said I could come back later
when the bad vibes wore down.

There is a hollering and someone has a
dog that barks,
your eyes have that recently crying look
and your hair seems as soft
and your smell as sweet
as before
as that last time you came to my door
in a skirt of printed sunflowers

Rasta gets crazy on me in the car
wanting five dollars
two bucks
anything.
I give him nothing
just smoke and drink.
He's got an ice pick in his hand
makes it sound like he's got a gun.
I'd already heard Raine was in jail
but I didn't expect a Rasta jail.

But it has been seen that you look
straight through
I fear that you are already gone
that night you tried to die in my arms
is something that I will not forget
or make sense of
you and your skirt of printed sunflowers.

The image crossed my mind how it might feel
if he jabbed that icepick into me
a couple of times or more.
Just curious to see if he'd do it or not
could I stop him, I could tell I didn't know.

I think that you no longer see nothing
and God knows what kind
of love is this
you told me that you never stopped loving me
but you could never return to me
in your skirt of sunflowers
in your skirt of sunflowers

I just stare and talk about money.
I bummed a cigarette from him.
I told him I'd be in touch about Raine.
He said
"Man, you crazy."
and walked off.
I went back home to think.

Girl of these woods and chemicals
we labor for the black pigs of poetry
for the bone gods of the sea
for the secret rose you keep for me
under the skirt of printed sunflowers.

-Will Dockery

And... so it went.