On Butterfly’s 85th, with apologies to some great poets

August 26, 2011 By
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At our place

With apologies to Lieut.-Col. John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

 

At our place the poppies blow

Around the houses and down below

The pond and barn, and who’s to blame?

The woman with an ever-changing name,

Butterfly, for those who didn’t know.

 

We are the kids.  Short years ago

We lived here midst the dried weeds that grow:

Foxtail and star thistle, and now we live

In Butterfly’s gardens.

 

Maintaining them is quite a trick;

Irrigation lines crumble when she wields her pick,

Leaving Sallysue with no recourse

But to loudly express remorse,

Although she actually gets quite a kick

From Butterfly’s gardens.

 


 

 

            The Hike of the Lazy Bums

With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Charge of the Light Brigade

 

Half a mile, half a mile,

Half a mile onward,

All along Stevens Trail

Trudged the Five Hikers.

“Forward you lazy bums!

We need to be out before darkness comes!”

All along Stevens Trail

Trudged the Five Hikers.

 

“Forward you lazy bums!”

She ordered whilst leaving a trail of crumbs:

Fritos; and every walker knew

Eating while hiking to be just like her.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs to hope she hadn’t brought a pie;

All along the Stevens Trail

Trudged the Five Hikers.

 

 

            O Butterfly!  My Butterfly

With apologies to Walt Whitman

O Captain!  My Captain!

 

O Butterfly! My Butterfly!  Your home décor is done;

The house is filled up to the brim, the space that’s left is … none!

The oven’s full, the dryer too, the shelves are overflowing,

While even on the stairs themselves your shoe collection’s growing:

 

But O dear, dear, dear!

What a thought goes through my head,

As I follow on your longing gaze …

You’re now eyeing my tool shed!

 

 

Trees

With apologies to Sgt. Joyce Kilmer

Trees

 

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

 

A tree once planted in a place

Close to another, with insufficient space;

 

A tree that grew to quite a size

Then,  transplanting, to Butterfly, seemed quite wise;

 

Poems are made by fools like me,

The same fool she gets to move each tree.

 

 

 

 

 

And, finally, a poem written by a real poet – one that captures the essence of Butterfly’s approach to life:

 

Keep a-Goin’

                        Frank L. Stanton

 

If you strike a thorn or rose,

Keep a-goin’!

If it hails or if it snows,

Keep a-goin’!

‘Taint no use to sit and whine

When the fish ain’t on your line;

Bait your hook an’ keep a-tryin’ –

Keep a-goin’!

 

When the weather kills your crop,

Keep a-goin’!

Though ‘tis work to reach the top,

Keep a-goin’!

S’pose you’re out o’ ev’ry dime,

Gittin’ broke ain’t any crime;

Tell the world you’re feelin’ prime –

Keep a-goin’!

 

When it looks like all is up,

Keep a-goin’!

Drain the sweetness from the cup,

Keep a-goin’!

See the wild birds on the wing,

Hear the bells that sweetly ring,

When you feel like surgin’, sing –

Keep a-goin’!

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Cheyenne at 100

August 26, 2011 By
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Jimmy jumped the bandstand on Leo while chasin’ down a runaway bull,

An’ Tuf pulled it out, again, on his final eight, only this time

he did it with style, arrangin’ for a flash of lightenin’ to accompany the horn!

 

Somethin’ about Cheyenne, even in her old age,

Causes us to show up, to again engage

In our annual ritual of liniment and braces,

Of camaraderie with the sun-worn faces

Of old friends, bent on another round of ridin’ the edge

And enjoyin’ the view from up on that high ledge.

 

Lane was there, as he has been ever since that day

In the mud.  He’ll still be there, long after we fade away,

Immortal, all because of his mortality and his smile

And the way he was, full of charm, wildness, and child.

 

The ladies were there, from Denver on out,

Lookin’ for cowboy excitement no doubt,

Dancin’ and drinkin’ and gettin’ look-at-me loud,

Struttin’ their stuff ‘mongst the overflow crowd

While they made like they didn’t notice, like they were too great

For just any old cowhand who’d just gotten his eight.

The boys all just chuckled and went on their way

Knowin’ they’d see ‘em much later that day.

 

I think next year, on the hundred and first,

I’ll sit back by the chutes, quenchin’ my thirst

For the ropin’ and ridin’ and bailin’ out quick,

For the twistin’ and turnin’ and tryin’ to stick

It for eight short seconds that seem a whole day,

But I ain’t gonna worry ‘bout takin’ home pay

Or whether or not buckle bunnies come by,

I think I’ll just sit there and stare at the sky

And ‘member all of my Frontier Days scenes,

Then go lie in the grass, content with my dreams.

Written in the late ‘90’s on the hundredth anniversary of Cheyenne Frontier Days

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Disparition

August 26, 2011 By
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I miss the painfully sharp black edges

Standing out against the white burning pure,

Now somehow just the fluff of blurred gray ash

Blown in a colder wind.

 

I miss the feeling of running on ledges,

Reveling in the danger so integral to the lure

That calls out from the passion of youth, so rash

Yet free of older sin.

 

What has become of the dawn?

The cold, sharp air of a winter’s morn?

The warmth of Santa Ana caressing the grass?

The pleasure of a sunset for two …

 

Where has the joy of the moment gone?

The soul set dancing by nothing?  Was it torn

From within, or crushed slowly beneath the mass

Of passing years?  I cry for salvation …

… In you.

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Short ‘n’ Sweet (or Quick ‘n’ Dirty)

August 26, 2011 By
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Saddlebags slung over his shoulder,

Limp in his long, slow stride,

Hat on his head with a wide, creased brim,

He looked just ‘bout ready to ride.

 

He was out of place and out of time

There in the airport hall,

She cast a sideways glance at him

As they heard the boarding call.

 

By the time they got to LA

She’d managed to get his name

And a few other facts she’d fished hard for

(Though she felt she was losin’ the game).

 

But in the jet-way he asked her to dinner,

And they wound up back at his hotel

Where she learned what they meant ‘bout a cowboy

When they said that his actions would tell.

 

Ten short months later they married,

Now I hear they ride most ever’day,

I’m told she does most of the ridin’,

Though he’s more in the saddle they sa

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Dimestore Cowboy

August 26, 2011 By
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“You’re just  a dimestore cowboy,” she’d said,

Letting the full weight of all that implied

Hit him, like a volley of purposeful lead

Aimed to see his life’s meaning denied.

 

For thirty long years he had weathered

Many a long, weary mile;

Keeping his home and outfit together

While pulling his weight with a smile.

 

He’d taken his lumps, survived bein’ thrown

And stomped by some pretty rank critters;

Over the years, he had come to be known

As a man who could ride without jitters.

 

Night hawk, wrangler, sometimes head honcho,

He’d worked every job just the same,

Protecting his riders from storms, like a poncho,

They all smiled when recallin’ his name.

 

He’d ridden’ in country far from his home,

Hung his hat in some pretty strange places,

Tired and beat, he’d continued to roam

And bet on a hand without aces.

 

His paychecks all went to settlin’ the bills

As obligations had steadily grown;

He looked back with a smile on the various spills

And the bumps, breaks, and bruises he’d known.

 

But it cut real deep when, late in his life,

After so many miles on the trail,

“Dimestore cowboy” had dripped from the lips of his wife,

And he wondered, “Just where did I fail?”

 

But he’d let it roll off, packed his saddlebags, then

Pulled on jeans and snapped up his shirt,

Put on belt, buckle, boots, and hat, like most men

Who are headed to work in the dirt.

 

He’d pushed it aside, he knew only one choice,

As he boarded his UAL steed,

To the question his friends were all sure to voice:

“You gonna cowboy up, or just lay there and bleed?”

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Life Redux

August 26, 2011 By
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You might have thought that I forgot

Or, perhaps, that it was the tequila talking that night at the bar.

I did not.  It was not.

We have known each other too long, and I have come too far

To lose track of the keys to your happiness.

 

You might now think that I digress

Or, perhaps, read more into things than I should.

I do not, though my eagerness

To see that you act upon your need for joie de vivre could,

I confess, easily be mistaken for such.

 

You might protest that I make too much

Of an occasional, meaningless pang for a change of scene.

I do not; that argument’s a crutch

Propping you up against the sadness unending ennui would mean.

Now there’s  a thought I cannot stand.

 

You must act on this demand:

Insist on drinking deep of life and tasting pleasure’s fruits.

Existence must not feel bland,

Nor daily life dulled to its deepest roots.

I will accept, for you, no smaller lot.

 

You probably thought that I forgot

Or, perhaps, that it was simply the liquor talking that night at the bar.

I did not; it was not;

I have known you too long and come too far

In this life’s slow regress

For you to think I would forget, or treat lightly talk of your happiness.

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Uno Tequila, Två Tequila, Trois Tequila, Dört …

August 26, 2011 By
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There was a time tequila told you much about a place,

Like the puzzled look, when ordered, neat, upon the bartender’s face

At the Heathrow Crowne Plaza or the Singapore Marriott,

In the good old days before we had the agave polyglot.

 

Now, bellied up in most locales at all the better inns,

When you order a tequila, the litany begins –

“Qu’ est-ce que vous voulez, monsieur?” I heard a barman say,

And then without a pause for breath he carried on this way:

 

Cuervo?  Sauza?  1800?  1921?

I see you are a cowboy, so you know I’ve just begun.

Aha Toro?  El Perdido? Casa Herradura?

Corazon?  Revolucion? (that stuff will kill or cure ya!),

Patron you’ll find is very good, reposado or anejo,

Sol Azul? Solo Mexico?  Don Jose Lopez Portillo?

Cabo Uno? Cabo Wabo? Maybe some Don Julio?

Dos Amigos? Tres Mujeres?  How about Campanario?

El Diamante del Cielo, the diamond of the sky?

Perhaps Gran Passion Suprema’s the one that you should try?

The names kept tripping off his tongue, in French-tinged Espanol,

Until I said “I think I’ll have Oro de Jalisco.”

 

I downed my drink and walked away, thinking to myself,

“It’s pretty clear that very soon they’ll need another shelf

In every fancy watering hole, now that they’ve discovered

The gift of the blue agave that we long ago uncovered.

They’ve long had upscale beers and wines and now what have they got?

Tequila in designer bottles at 40 bucks a shot!

 

 

It’s not that I’m complainin’, to have some choice is good,

Especially when you’re travellin’ far outside your neighborhood,

But I sort’a miss the old days, when any time I’d roam

Tequila was a heart-tug in the list that pulled me home,

When I’d stop off in my pickup at a dive that’d make you squirm,

And I’d hear the cowboy next to me ask, “Hey pard, you gonna eat that worm?”

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Lookin’ for Work in Oz

August 26, 2011 By
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I found myself down under lookin’ for honest work

In the Northern Territory, an’ since I’ve never been one to shirk

Or avoid any good, hard labor, I walked across a rancher’s spread,

Met him, offered my services, and listened as he said:

 

“You say you are a cowboy?  I’m not sure what that means,

It could be, to quote you Americans, ‘that ain’t worth a hill of beans.’

Can you even speak our language?  Understand the things we say?

I could use some help, but I ‘m afraid you’d just be in the way.”

 

I looked at him a moment, knowin’ he wasn’t right,

Decidin’ whether to prove him wrong with words or with a fight,

I opted for the former;  thought I’d teach him a good lesson,

Looked in his eyes and said straight out, “My friend, here’s what I’m guessin’:

 

You’re worried I can’t communicate with the rest of the hired hands,

Let me tell you what I know, and you figure where that stands.”

He looked me squarely in the eye and slowly nodded his head;

I met his gaze, mine straight and cold, and this is what I said:

 

“A cattle drive’s a muster,

A ranch is called a station,

A cowboy like me don’t fluster

And don’t show no hesitation.

 

A cowboy like me’s a ringer true,

When there’s cattle work needs done,

If you’re lookin’ for a wannabe jackaroo,

Well, I guess I ain’t the one.

 

When I work cattle I ride a horse

‘cept when groundwork is a must,

I’ll pin a bull with pure brute force

And eat my share of dust.

 

I leave sheilas for the scarce holiday,

Don’t mind workin’ with jillaroos,

Don’t need no more than meager pay,

I steer clear of the booze,

 

Though I’ve been known to shout a round

If we’ve lived through a brush with fate,

But it’s coffee in a billy on the ground

That I drink both early and late.

 

I like livin’ in the woop woop,

And I don’t mind bush bashin’

I’m a loner, I don’t need no troop,

A few good friends are my ration.

 

I’m a solid American cowhand

Who lives by the Code of The West,

If you want a man who rides for the brand

Then put me to the test.”

 

The station manager looked at me, I thought that he would waffle

As he turned away, then muttered “Your Aussie’s really awful”;

He shook his head, looked at the ground, leaned upon the gate,

Then said “I need a cowboy here; job’s yours, goodonya mate.”

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Gambler’s Lament

August 26, 2011 By
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I didn’t bet on real estate

With a house I couldn’t afford,

I didn’t risk my family’s fate

On the luck of the Big Board.

 

I didn’t ask for a CEO’s return

On a risk that wasn’t real,

I only asked that what I earned

The government didn’t steal

To pay off those who’ve lost

By betting on the come,

Or to bail out execs who were tossed

For being both greedy and dumb.

 

Seems like even those who don’t want to play

Are being forced into the game

By a government that’s lost its way;

My friends, it’s quite a shame.

 

Let’s get back to being self reliant

And betting on our hard work

And standing up strong and defiant

In the face of the false winner’s smirk.

 

Let’s not be among those fooled all of the time

By promises of money unearned;

Let’s enjoy the outcome of work in our prime

And leave the greedy to get burned.

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Remuda

August 26, 2011 By
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The phone rang late last evenin’

an’ a voice said from afar,

“I hope you got insurance

‘cause your steer just hit my car.”

 

“Your cattle’s out on 49,”

(this voice was mighty curt),

“If I was you I’d saddle up

before someone gets hurt.”

 

I took his name ‘n’ number

an’ apologized, an’ then

I thought of my remuda

an’ the shape that it was in.

 

Kermit’s got navicular

an’ blocking hasn’t worked,

Tanya’s full of stitches

from the way some bob-wire jerked,

 

Red just threw a shoe,

an’ Gypsy’s thirty-three;

So looks like, for this roundup,

it’s jest the wife ‘n’ me.

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