Engineering

Some of you, know.
Everyone else
doesn't matter.

But I can remember hearing
spurs
in the jingling of
my boot-buckles
and horse's-hooves
in the echoing
"tock"
of my heels
bouncing between
the brick-streets and
adobe-walls.

How many miles did
those boots take me
before I
unceremoniously
cut out the steel-toes
to see
what they looked like?

And trying to walk
in boots
without toes, is
like knife-fucking;
It doesn't last long.

I had them for 10 years.
I walked through
high-school and
University
in that pair of
boots.

I walked past a thousand
shoulda-suicides, by
looking down at
the cool-assed boots
on my feet,
which other people
(the turds in my punchbowl)
were too dimwitted
to recognize.
Listen...
...the sound of broken
windshield-glass
when you step on the
bits,  sometimes they
"SKWEEK!"
...

The quick-release of
snow, that's
 clumped-on there
freezing your
toes,
cause you can just
kick a wall
dead-on.
Snow..?
What kind? How much?

If it's the slushy-stuff
that's been thawed
and refrozen, a few times over
then you tuck your pants
in
to keep off the salt.
Powdery stuff is
fine, until it
 acccumulates,
then you gotta
fold your jeans
over the top of
your boots
so you don't wind-up
with snow in your
socks.

Sand...

The sand on
Chicago's
North-Shore Beach, is
coarse
mostly pale-colored
with
smatterings of
brown and black bits.
just like the
people.

In Lubbock, Tx
sand is
red.
Red like the back
of a knot-headed
cotton-Farmer's
creased neck.

And there, they
call it
"dust".
But it ain't.
it's fine
red
sand.

Hourglass-sand.

I spent an eternity
 in
West Texas
once.

JC Penney
Engineer-boots
can provide a bit
of support, when
you start twisting
your ankles
from stepping-in the
prarie-dog holes that
lattice the
campus.

And when you
get to them, (because of
your art-major)
you can scrawl-

FUCK YOU

with your boot-heel
on the off-white walls
so that when you
finish
talking to that guy
and walk-away
he will finally
understand what
"Meta"
means.

It's really
 a damn
shame
that it's taken
this long,
to recognize something
I've been stepping-over
for so many
 years.