J.W. Goll
The Old West
The gunslinger motel, no match for the blowing snow,
offers three fuzzy channels, photos of Roy Rogers and Trigger,
a noisy heater on its last leg, and a sense of loss,
nameless in such places, a deja vu just out of reach,
so I stick with Bay Watch and titillation which,
like the poor, will always be with us, unlike the rugged West, say,
or this warmth, fading fast.
J.W. Goll is a writer and artist whose stories and poems are informed by experiences as a photographer in Chicago, the Dakotas, and Central Europe, any of which he would gladly return to if only they’d let him back in.