Consider Karl of Ernstthal
A. k.a. Kara Ben Nemsi
Who’d never been
To Ottoman Turkey
And only posthumously
Bore the Wild West
Clear to South Dakota
Where a Shatterhand
Would as soon kick aside
As make a sidekick
Of a Lakota (Sioux)
Or of a Winnetou

And the day is not saved
To be savoured
By a Hitler
Who eats whole countries
For breakfast, or dinner
Or Jause
Like Yugoslavia
In whose canyons the Germans and partisans
Made a war playing cowboys and Indians
(As a 35 millimeter
And a 50 caliber
Clicked away)
Inspired by the self-same
Karl Friedrich May

And in the time of May
Personalities multiplied
Each with a name,
But the sickness they
Collectively implied
Had no name at all
Until later, D.I.D.,
In the tamed West
Where to be
Many people
Is unnatural
And where the danger of losing yourself
Or being lost by another
Quite real

In fact,
We do it
All the time

© 2012 Holly Case

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