We all have dreams when we are young.
Some of us want to be a fireman,
baseball player, astronaut,
or scientist.

Michael’s dream was to be a Smokin’ Cowboy!

Photo by Wilma Crum
(Michael’s Mom)

Photography by Val Fouque

The Alamo

Lone Star

Gunslinger

Colonel Crow’s

Billy the Kid

Old Mister Willis
isn’t quite right,
walks rainy streets
alone at night,
talking to angels
and demons and such,
he laughs and cries
and feels too much.
Listens to old 45s
still spinning inside his head
calls out loud
to lost loves now dead.
Hasn’t turned to Jesus
since 1982,
trusts voices only he can hear
to tell him what to do.
Never thinks to comb his hair,
shave his beard, or tie his shoes,
doesn’t know the price he paid
was never his to have or lose.

Words by Ron Willis
Photography by Irena Mila

• Flickr

• Deviant Art

Wild Texas Rose

I left my baby on a cold dark night
I fell in with a gypsy girl
She gave me love she gave me sex
Then she cursed me with a gypsy hex
She said taste every flower
You can take a brand new bride
‘Till you’re layin’ cold in the ground
You will never be satisfied
Wild Texas Rose
She was born to cut you with her thorns
No one knows where she comes
Or where she goes
She’s a ghost in the wind
Sometimes curse sometimes friend
Everyone knows … Wild Texas Rose
Thought I heard her gypsy song
Coyote howl in the whispering wind
Felt a chill way down inside
When I heard her words again
Darkness falls and the moon is bright
Shadows dance in the firelight
A cowboys dreams turn to love
And the gypsy queen he’s dreamin’ of …

Painting by Ros Webb
Lyrics by Michael Benfield

• Modernpaintings

I’ve called out to the trees
And I’ve called out to the birds,
But walking through these badlands,
There are no words.

Buffalo grass dances in silence
To the song of the west wind,
And the person I know myself to be
Will never pass this way again.

This land does not know my name,
And the west wind I thought would call
Seems to know we are not the same,
And I shouldn’t have come here at all.

The prairie child comes to understand
He won’t be finding his fate in this land.

Words by Ron Willis
Photography by Irena Mila

• Flickr

• Deviant Art