Hey, fella, can you stake a fellow American to a meal?
Sure, but from now on you’ll have to make it through life on your own.
Hey, fella, can you stake a fellow American to a meal?
No, but I can give you work.
The work is hard, but it is good pay. $8 American dollars a day.
Have you ever staked a camp?
(while the work is in progress) Hey, where’s my pay?
You’ll get your pay when we get back into town.
What can you do with it out here except gamble and lose it?
(he is later stiffed out of his pay...)
So he stays in a place full of rats, scorpions, and cockroaches,
hearing stories of beauty and gold,
and how either could twist a man’s soul if he wasn’t careful...
Yet, wearying of pushing guys for dimes and sleeping around in freight cars,
and his chances placed in losing lottery tickets,
he sees opportunity in a prospector’s tales...
He found a dead man, murdered, who sacrificed the treasure he had,
evidenced by a lone letter from his wife he won, as he sought more,
in the gold foothills of the Sierra Madre.
He witnessed the dirty, filthy ideas even decent folk get when gold is at hand,
so he spent his remaining days with families that, after a good, hard day of working together,
sang to guitar songs, often until morning.
Author notes
drawn from the movie "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) set in 1925
In a list
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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At the restaurant: So what's your treasure? I mean pleasure?
Amazing how something written for 1925 still has impact today. So glad you brought this movie to light in your "synopsis" poem. Seeking "treasure" begs the question of what is your treasure in life? So much that we consider treasure is "easily blown away in the wind". I liked your ending, "so he spent his remaining days with families that, after a good, hard day of working together, sang to to guitar songs, often until morning". Sweet. I think you found the treasure in the movie. Now I wonder if he added that classic "Walter Huston dance" to the guitar songs. That dance is classic, can't help but smile when I think of that one. This was nice segue from your poem "The Sheriff and Mr. Dobbs". It was the launch point for mention of this movie and that dance with Walter.....see how much is in your writing?
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they say the movie bombed at the box office, but it is the type that offers things that 'stick in one's head'... like that guy with the wife- how he was misjudged up until the letter was discovered... and the working family line- the young guy recounted that... and I was ready for a profound 'badge' speech... and all it was was a bandito saying, "Weee don't neeeed no stinking badge!" lol so I got what I could out of it...
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There you go again, being the Unique King. Of all the themes presented in this movie, the last one I would have expected you to focus on was the guy with the wife and the letter! You threw me for a loop there, but it gives me insight into where your mind is. As for the "profound" badge speech, that line about "stinking badges" has been a punch line in so many comedic routines in the past 50 years that it is a classic (noticed you wrote "weee" and "neeed", see you got it. By the way, that was the biggest line in that actor's life, talk about destiny!) Why even SNL took a stab at it. It always draws a laugh. Hopefully you laughed....
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