Rocker Memoir
by Odin Roark

Hotel Nugget
Now but a cat and mouse residency
Ghost town memories catching still-night breezes
As hypnotic rocking begins its ritual
Bramble bush audience tranquil in the streets
Making room for snake and scorpion of little bother

An owl atop the saloon’s tin roof blinks
And like a surreal opera chorus
Stairways creak
Brothel’s shredded curtains flap
Left-behind jail-keys jingle timidly
Windmill squeaks its hunger for oil
All becoming a melodious accompaniment
Knowing well the faithful and sometimes cranky hotel proprietor
Sadie Dershowitz
Nugget’s self-appointed diva
Its one of a kind anomaly
Especially in 1853 Goldy Town
Will rock on what once was

Need a room
Need a girl
Need some shoeing
Need me

C’mon

Somebody must need me
Laments the lonely immigrant
Staking a claim to her own destiny
Chanting tributes to her settler friends
Her secret sadness for the freedom dreamers
The German
Irish
Chinese
Itlalians
Needing little of a gold town’s riches
Wanting only the liberty to be

So little tolerance
Then
And now

Sadie died in her rocker
A casualty of her time
But unlike today…

Her dying day
Remained proud
She’d been given a chance
Like other stalwart travelers
Willing to pave their way

Sadly
Today
Illegal aliens on foot
Willing by any means
To earn their stay
Face many roads across America
Seemingly in perpetual political wash-out