I Rode With John Wayne

Jeanie Sanders

August 20, 2023

Traveling into the movie World

with my hero, John Wayne, my red boots

and black cowboy hat feed yearnings

for Majestic barren landscapes.

through the beauty of desolation.

Anticipation is like a dryness in my throat

as I join John on a rise above Palo Duro Canyon

searching any train for twisted humanity.

How beautifully straight John sits

confident on his tooled saddle.

He raises his callous cowboy hand

and we spur our horses and move out

into the Sunset of the West.

On the trail of Righteousness we always

win.  For we are the “good guys.”

John and I never think about the bloody mess

we create and leave to the buzzards to clean up.

Because it’s just us, on the next red bluff, arroyo, 

or canyon, John Wayne and I.

Jeanie Sanders is a poet and collage artist.  Her poems have been published in the Texas Observer, Voices de la Luna, The San Antonio Express News, La Voz de Esperanza, and several anthologies. She is a member of the Sun Poets of San Antonio and the Alamo Area Poets of Texas. Her new book is titled, The Book of the Dead.