Journal 4 - Orange Cliché — Summary

Duluk2.3.09Cheerful

The night sky was an orange cliché where silly men in standard manly boots strut sideways into the gasping sunset – tired of their stubble and hoping for another scene to capture the faux visionary mind. He steps on the smoked cigarette and looks into his splotchy horse’s blank eyes. Where are we goin? he asks. Neigh of course is all the splotched polka-dotted horse replies. Horse speak for everything and nothing. He places his spit-laden boot in the cracked stirrup and puts all his weight into it – just to aggravate. The horse bucks – 2 can play at that game. Again he tries to make the horse his servant – and the horse knows who’s stronger. Flat on his sun burned back he smiles at the placid horse with his stupid little eyes pretending to know something. The horse almost runs off to the next town, but doesn’t. He doesn’t know the way.

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Duluk takes the classic Western image, a cowboy against an orange sunset, and mocks it. The opening line calls the sky a "cliché," and the men in "standard manly boots" are tired, stubbly, and hoping for a scene that makes them look visionary. The speaker seems amused and a little scornful of the whole pose.

The story that follows undercuts the myth. The cowboy asks his spotted horse where they're going, and the horse only says "Neigh." He climbs on out of spite, "just to aggravate," gets bucked off, and ends up flat on his sunburned back. The horse, with its "stupid little eyes," seems to pretend it knows something. The last joke is that it almost runs off to the next town but doesn't, because it doesn't know the way.

The mood is playful, sarcastic, and deflating. Neither man nor horse is a hero. Both are lost, and the poem enjoys that.

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