Black Bart

Black Bart

I’m Black Bart from Oregon, Illinois that is
I made my way to Frisco Bay to work in a freight office
I used my false identity to rob the stagecoach lines
I had the inside info – the routes, the cash, the times.

A flour sack upon my head with holes for mouth and eyes,
I bore a rusty shotgun and had no more disguise.
I said “stand and deliver”, with a voice that came from Hell
“throw down the box and drive away before I make my kill.”

I left a poem at every job “For honor and for riches,
But on my corns too long you’ve tread you fine-haired sons-o-bitches.”
Walked twenty miles back to town from Mendicino County,
That’s how I got away with it, and kept all of the bounty.

And when they finally caught me and sent me off to stir
I did a stretch of twenty years, and then returned to work.
I never fired a single shot from that rusty gun.
I was just a thief with poetry and propensity for fun.

“Now I lay me down to sleep, to wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat and everlasting sorrow.
Let come what may, I’ll try it on, my condition can’t be worse.
But if there’s money in that box, ‘tis money in my purse.

I’m Black Bart from Oregon, Illinois that is,
And you can just go straight to Hell, you fine-haired son of a ****.