When I was younger there always seemed to be a western on TV in the background.  As a little girl if I had been good all day, I got to stay up for an extra hour before bedtime to watch Bonanza or The High Chaparral. It was an innocent time, when no-one even questioned why our heroes were shooting at the Indians… that’s just the way it was; and someone had to be the bad guy.

As a teenager I moved on to Alas Smith and Jones, and what fun they had cracking safes and robbing trains! Eventually I becoming a fan of the coolest guy to ever wear a cowboy hat; the amazing Clint Eastwood, who is said, never to have had that poncho washed for the entire spaghetti western series… just to keep in character.  imagine how  uncomfortable that was, in all of that heat?

So my love of guys in cowboy hats continues to this day, but it all began with a certain mister Gable and one of my all-time favourite movies, Boomtown with Claudette Colbert and Spencer ‘nice- but totally resistible’ Tracey. But enough of this waffle! Here is my own cowboy themed poem Wild Montana…

Wild Montana

Here in the present,

Living in the past,

Last week,

Thursday,

Back there again,

Waiting,

For the sarcasm to start.

Her spiteful eyes, gleaming,

Vicious mouth screaming,

Wife, life, wife.

♣

My lover, he says,

He’s leaving for Montana.

Abandoned yet again!

My life is secretly suspended,

While waiting for his calls.

Not long now, he murmurs,

But, she glares back,

Feverish with fury,

Destroying the last seconds,

Whilst he’s still with me.

♣

I think of Montana,

Wild and untamed.

Seeing photos he sends me,

I feel a little closer,

Knowing,

He’s out there –

Drinking and riding,

Wild horses and women,

Like Clark Gable –

Without a cowboy hat.

♣

He calls me, desperately;

Needing money to escape,

Will he really leave her?

Naturally, he says.

And for a split second,

I believe him,

Buying back into the old dream,

Of wild, untamed Montana:

It feels a lot like love,

But it’s as real as his cowboy hat.

♣

First published in contemporary Literary Horizon 2014 in English & Romanian