Don't Go Into Old Mineshafts Alone

[mnaz]

Enter the oasis
from a storm of blaze
into the cigarette cloud.
Clara speaks in a husky rasp,
calls everyone hon, sets down a Bud.
TV has a debate on legal brothels.
Poker fiends poke machines.

Bill is a rancher,
face full of sun-baked canyons.
Josephine is a mountain of a woman.
The cigarette cloud can’t touch her.
She warns me about old mineshafts.

Never go alone.
Never wanted to.
It’s dangerous.
I heard that.
Those drop shafts.
You go in there?
Sometimes a mile.
You’re joking.
Never go alone.
Never wanted to.
Take six flashlights.
Maybe more.
Are you a geologist?
I’m new here.
Must be a paleontologist.
A what?
I like dinosaurs too.
Dinosaurs?

Hey guys, Josephine yelled,
I want you to meet a paleontologist.
The bar wasn’t into dinosaurs that day.
Maybe next week, or in a few eons.

[saw]

I'd love to visit that saloon

[mnaz]

Ha. True story too. I really did meet "Josephine," and she described how she liked to walk a mile into old mineshafts with six flashlights. Thanks Steve.