GUNSLINGER
How can one expect no bite
Once one has meated the hook
The gunslinger goes with fight
Gives fear not a second look
Told between then and now and never
Does he not stand and shiver
For this boy Jake whom he so loves
Has at once let go and taken the plunge
Once fearless yet now he has split
Losing his mind an inch at a time
Eddie in his hazel looks
Holds the key in an ash book
The slug which would have nailed him dead
Stuck in someone else's head
Susannah who's legs Mort took
More fierce than the two of them
For not one is this young woman
But three come to join as one
Not all four of them will survive
All drawn on by one foul source
The Dark Tower stands tall and sullen
By death takes anyone in its shadow
All doomed and bound by one single fate
All follow the same path too late
Jake who opens the door again
Eddie who provides the key
(the 's' at the top, that is the secret!)
Susannah who occupies the beast
Roland who once killed the boy
Now plunges in and makes good his deeds.
Roland, the teacher, who receives with doubt
His promises and himself at last
Their journey is yet unfinished
Now reunited they will go on
Bound together by one evil force
The Dark Tower alone and forsaken
Taken by a power too great
For even the four who dare to take it
Jake, Eddie, Susannah, Roland
Door, key, rose…
And what is left of the gunslinger?
What is left for the gunslinger?
(stone)
(a heap of broken images)
(fear in a handful of dust)
-- originally written 6.21.1998