ode to the gunslinger: from the outlaw's prayer john dorsey for ed dorn there was     a bad moon rising     across your lips an     abstract expressionist at heart     painting sour notes as     you whistled all the way up that darker mountain that had swallowed     those doves of prayer     charles olson had nearly     shut the gates of     hell for your demons     though ed were larger     than any white whale     because they knew where     you slept they were     dream sent on the     wings of banjos who     would have pegged you     for being afraid of     a mouse they knew     even as you snarled     "caspar the friendly     ghost i ain't" it     was    all for bravado's     sake cuz you were     the gunslinger who couldn't     get arrested unlike ginsberg     you found love and     fame less than           comprehensive who would     have pegged you for     being afraid of a           mouse? they said     ed dorn creeps into     la jolla like the     ghost of paul revere's     smoking gun you weren't     afraid of turning into     a pumpkin but were     after cinderella's glass slipper     from the beginning not     for some ball pussy     that spelled like the     champagne that gunslingers like     you rarely get to     even taste but because     you were a gentleman     poet professor of the     blues dreaming bullets your     eyes piercing hearts the     modern gun of the     dispossessed but hell pard     you weeped to olson     "it's not even for     me some pussy would get     my gun through a     lotta dark           nights"