cowboypoetrypress

“Just About Lost” by Leroy Trussell

JUST ABOUT LOST

by Leroy Trussell

Shucks just got ’em

maybe two hours ago

can’t say where from

tried to buy American, but these

came from Mexico.

I just had them in my hand,

must uh’ laid them down somewhere.

sure nuff messes up my working plans,

been uh lookin’, but can’t find em anywhere.

Looked out in the old barn

wudn’t in the pickup seat

dat-burn, wish they’d transform

thank gudness I always keep that store receipt.

Not long ago in town I got ’em

at Crownover Feed, Marble Falls, Texas

boy this is such a cowboy mayhem,

for blisters I don’t want ’em, but for sure ’nuff I need ’em.

Guess I could borrow my Sons’,

but they seem a bit small.

and by their looks, they are far gone

an pert near be a bad judgment call.

Well guess I’ll drive back to Town, buy another pair

gonna get ’em in rawhide leather

back Home, well shoot, there the others sittin’ in my lazyboy chair

you bet it’s good to have a spare, when hard work comes ta’ gather.

In The Hay Loft

by Scott Lennox

Boys of ten or eleven, we sat in the shadows,
avoiding the sunlight that spilled across the dusty wooden floor.
Looking down at the horses and riders circling in the corral,
I tried to imagine the years and the comings and goings
in the old barn with its smells of horses, manure and hay.
I pictured Texas cowboys, saddled up and riding out,
proud and alone, heading west across open prairie.

When I pushed back against a half-strewn bale,
I struck something hard and reached behind me to find
a sawed-off shotgun, its double barrels aged but clean,
the pistol-grip handle rubbed smooth.
Our chatter stopped as, trembling, heart racing,
I thumbed the latch and slowly opened the breech,
relieved to find no shells inside.

“He could still be here!” one boy whispered,
sure that we were being watched. “If he finds out…”
“Shhhht,” I hushed, sliding the weapon back where I found it,
but hand and mind reluctant to let go.
For a moment, each of us studied the others,
then scattered like cat-spied mice from a feed bin.
For no reason I can tell, we never spoke of it again.

But my mind, for more than fifty years, has climbed that ladder,
over and over, inventing stories about the loft,
about the one with dreadful secrets to be kept,
his murderous plans, his treachery carried out.
Strange, the way the past hangs on, retelling itself,
when we would just as soon be done, but fascinated,
ask to hear the story one more time.

Scott Lennox is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 20 years of clinical experience in mental health working in hospital and private practice setting He has developed his own training program, Compassion In Action, teaching professionals and others the measurable actions of compassion toward more effective relationships.

Scott’s friends know him to be a true renaissance man. As an accomplished artist, poet, photographer, musician, gourmet cook, horseman, and public speaker, Lennox demonstrates his passion for being fully alive and helping others to do the same.

His background includes radio and television, commercial photography, and more than three decades of facilitating personal excellence with individuals and groups in educational, clinical, and corporate settings.

Lennox’s drawings and paintings are held in public and private collections and two of his drybrush watercolor landscapes hung in the United States Embassy residence in Geneva, Switzerland and later, in the United States Embassy in Moscow.  Scott self-published In Brazos River Country, a limited edition volume of twenty-four poems.  He is currently in production of a recorded version and is collaborating to develop a bilingual printed version in English and Spanish.

After serving as a medic in combat in Southeast Asia, where he was decorated for valor, Scott earned his Bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University and his Master’s from the University of Texas at Arlington.

ALMOST

by Larry Bradfield

He was just a boy when he rode out-
Long legs and knobby knees
Rode drag to Denver from Santa Fe
An’ grew by twos and threes

He learned the trade of punchin’ cows
An’ silence of the men
He was alone but so were they –
Not like it was back then

Not like the days of sweepin’ floors
In brothels and the bars
An orphan lookin’ for a meal
An’ washin’ whiskey jars

Now he crossed the plains wide and free
And saw the mountains rise
It was almost, almost enough
‘Til he recalled her eyes

She’d been sixteen an’ so had he
They didn’t know ’bout love
So they held hands and talked all night
An’ counted stars above

Then she was gone, just slipped away –
An’ he was punchin’ cows
He had the world to call his own
With all the heres an’ nows

And so he looked at all the world
An’ marveled at its size
It was almost, almost enough
‘Til he recalled her eyes

Larry Bradfield is a retired physicist / aerospace executive who was born and raised in the midst of sand, oil and cattle in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. After living and working on both coasts and the borders of Mexico and Canada, he has retired to  Texas and still feels his roots in the cattle country. He is the author of two books of cowboy poetry – One Foot in the Stirrup and Out Where the Blacktop Ends – and has publshed a number of poems in the on-line world.
His wife, Joyce, is a proud Pennsylvania native who has taken easily to the Texas soil.

Cowboys We Are

by Karla K. Morton

Into the night, the steer fear the dawning
Skittish of the dark, they low and they bray
So we, before bed, hum through our yawning
These heavenly moments under star spray.

Come sing the night song, come stoke the old fires
Drink makes us young and drink makes us liars.
Girls make us bold, old dogs make us criers
But cowboys we are at the end of day.

A little more padding under our bed,
Coffee we drink now with sugar and cream.
Callouses softened, our belly’s, well fed
But time can’t erase our open range dream.

Come sing the night song, come stoke the old fires
Drink makes us young and drink makes us liars
Girls make us bold, old dogs make us criers
Cowboys we are at the end of the day.

We might work in banks or a bar in town
Be plumbers or lawyers — cleaning what sours
Watching the clock as it makes its countdown,
For long weekends here – these rich, sacred hours.

Cities are charging each pasture and tree,
The world is changing from trail to highway
But as long as man needs sky to be free
Horses we’ll saddle to round up each stray

Come sing the night song, come stoke the old fires
Drink makes us young and drink makes us liars
Girls make us bold, old dogs make us criers
Cowboys we are at the end of the day.

Karla K. Morton, the 2010 Texas Poet Laureate, is a Councilor of the Texas Institute of Letters, member of the Western Writers of America, and graduate of Texas A&M University. Described as “one of the most adventurous voices in American poetry,” she is a Betsy Colquitt Award Winner, twice an Indie National Book Award Winner and a North Texas Book Award Festival Winner. Morton is the recipient of the Writer-in-Residency E2C Grant, and has ten collections of poetry. She is widely published, is a nominee for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, and established an ekphrastic collaborative touring exhibit titled: No End of Vision: Texas as Seen By Two Laureates, pairing photography with poetry.