“Outlaw”[1] director renowned chose “Malpaso”
For his company name. . .Mexican word.
Why did he chose it? might be your pregunta;[2]
Name don’t suggest movement free as a bird.

Also you might ask, what could be the punta[3]
Of such a term that does not augur well?
With connotations negative it’s laden.
Gather round now and the story I’ll tell.

When young, a cowboy series he’s in—
“Rawhide”—that’s where it begins.
Dashing and daring
Was he, the show airing
For six years, in front o’
That Leone stuff.

So then after, guy
Challenged the man who then worked as his agent,
Who thought he had all the answers and swore
That his career could be finished in a heartbeat
If poncho and the pan’s[4] gross stubble he wore.

The actor stared at him with stony silence;
Later on, that his trademark would become.
He riposted to his agent, “I’ll go there,
With Sergio.” Agent: “OK, be dumb!

“Ouch! It’s a ‘bad step,’ it’s no good, this plan!”
Again this horse’s ass cried.
Turned out, ’twas he dumb;
The actor sought freedom,
So off to the Spanish desert he hied.

Just as fast as he
Could from this dreck feckless clown—then ¿qué pasó?
Three flicks as man with a name no one knows.

Lacked, his pal graso[5], insight; he was worthless—
The actor had the foresight, and he left.
His career vaulted, with bucks his purse laden;
Had he listened. . .of fame, fortune bereft?

He saddled up, made a fistful of dough,
Riding high, getting high marks
From the critics for westerns of spaghetti
That his agent had once passed off as mere larks.

The actor sneers, wry:
“I think I’ll call my company Malpaso.
It’s tinged with irony—that I do know.
My gumption’s strong, and it pushes me onward.”
Let’s hypothesize about agent schmoe:

He’d not been right when he’d counseled ’gainst cowboy
Pictures, post-which Clint then made dozens more.
Shouting and shooting, an auteur became he;
Adulation he accrued by the score.

But things went dreadfully wrong for the heel
Whom Clint had spurned to go and ride.
He’d found good tidings; the agent was addled
And became teary; Clint he can’t abide.

He stays drunk for
Days into nights, and frequently he’s fallen,
Boozy and beery, off stools to his chest.
Many White Russians had caused him to rifle
Through his wife’s earning till she spurned the pest.

His work went nowhere, but Clint’s up was bounding. . .
Kissed off the dweeb who’d not stood by his side.
The agent then toppled off of his high horse
When he was blitzed, and from the fall he died.


[1]“The Outlaw Josey Wales”
[2]question
[3]point
[4]face
[5]greasy