October 2014 Issue- Week 2
October 14, 2014
“Better late than never!” our managing editor Ms. Stelling says. It’s been busy around the pub office since we began 1 year to the date publishing authors poetry and flash fiction books. And we look forward to more manuscript submission for next fall! We would love to see some western genre manuscripts come out way, since there are so many of you submitting to this ezine.
See our submission guidelines at www.reddashboard.com for more information, dates are Oct 1st – Feb 28th.
Enjoy this months issues!
Photo by Malinda Fillingim of David Fillingim singing at a chuck wagon event at the Booth Western Museum, Cartersville, GA.
COWBOY SHOWERS
She never liked the smell of cattle
Keeping me clean was always her battle
I sprayed myself twice a day
Just to keep the fighting at bay.
It never dawned on me
That my arm pits stank
But daily she reminded me
With many big yanks.
Get in the shower
She’d loudly declare
While I wash out
Your dirty underwear.
I wonder if her
Love is enough
To keep me clean
Not smelling of snuff
Maybe it is,
Maybe it’s not,
But this shower
Is way too hot.
She can’t cook
Her love’s gone sour,
So why am I here
Scrubbing in a shower?
I’ll grab my clothes
And all that’s pretty
And find a woman
Who’ll love me dirty!
Malinda and David Fillingim have been married for over 30 years and live in Leland, NC. They both teach at Cape Fear Community College, Wilmington, NC. David is an award winning writer of many books and articles, including Georgia Cowboy Poets and Malinda takes really good photos with a camera she bought at a thrift store for one dollar. Contact either one at fillingam@ec.rr.com.
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INDIAN CAMP OF THE HUDSON VALLEY – A True Story
There was no reservation,
only houses and shanties
in the wetlands along the Esopus Creek.
Not good land, it flooded
in the Springs when the run-off
to the river was high.
Dutch burghers and Tory descendants
disdained it, but
it was place to these displaced Algonquians,
Lenape from New Jersey, Manhattan and Delaware.
They took the twenty-fours dollars worth of trinkets
for land they did not own,
and they knew farming,
how to make fabric from plants and skins.
They had kitchen gardens
tended by women and children.
In time before driven out of the valley,
men worked the slate mines,
skidding great gray slabs on timbers
to Hudson’s stolen river.
Straining horses and men delivered
the sidewalks of New York
to barges dipping and bowing
in the residual tides of estuary.
Commerce walked like a ghost
on the water
of the Creek and of the River,
slipping away toward Manhattan
and the sea.
Howard Winn has published over 400 poems and short stories in various competitive selection literary magazines. He’s published one book of poetry, and has been nominated for a Push Cart Press Award three times. Winn has appeared in two poetry anthologies, one published in the Ashland Poetry Series and one of Hudson Valley poets edited by Mary Gordon. He’s been included in one anthology celebrating the 300th year anniversary of the discovery of the Hudson River.
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Blessings Be Upon You, Horace Greely
“Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.”
So, I followed the Conestogas
and found forever, an Eden,
endless vistas that promised
vast possibilities of success.
With no gaurantee in my pocket,
save that of manhood’s training,
I trusted myself,
and called myself frontiersman
when in truth I was a gambler separated
from those who sought safety in civilization.
And I, a being formed by space itself,
untamed, unrestrained
except by natural age and failing,
chart my course by stars named
Sea. Sage. Sequoia.
Mesa, rio, arroyo—
commissioned by God to dare.
Experiment.
Build.
Fashion.
A demigod in boots and chaps
wielding a branding iron instead of lightning bolts,
I did not know the Great Divide
was more than just geography,
that those contented
with being Europe’s mirror
would become my enemy
because they fear the freedom
of the ultimate question:
Now that God has made him,
what can a man make of himself?
Jenean McBrearty is a graduate of San Diego State University, a former community college instructor who taught Political Science and Sociology, and is finishing a certificate in Veteran Studies. Her fiction has been published in a slew of print and on-line journals including Cigale Literary Magazine, 100 Doors to Madness Anthology, Mad Swirl and The Moon; her poetry has been accepted by Van Gogh’s Ear and Page & Spine; and her photographs have appeared in Foliate Oak Literary Journal and Off the Coast Magazine among others. Her novel, The 9th Circle was published by Barbarian Books, serials Raphael Redcloak and Retrolands can be found on Jukepop.com. Web-page: Jenean-McBrearty.com.
October is also dedicated to Robert Penven, one of our beloved poets passed last night after a surgery that wasn’t suppose to cause problems. He was 81, and was one of our biggest supporters, lived here in New Jersey, about an hour away from the managing editor who met him at a local Vineland poetry group, Poetry-go-round once a month. RIP dear cowboy, you are missed…
Ekphrasis Challenge – Tumbleweed Tumbling
April 1, 2014
Photo taken by Mindy Wilson, Kentucky, USA
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TUMBLING WEED
by Shelby Stephenson, North Carolina, USA
I So this little tumble was taken . . . So was I. Weed, wiry hair in the scuds, reflecting in the sun. A thimble roll of gather licks and bucks the shells and white caps pointing out plovers. II I am a flower of awe, an awesome blossom of reflections like a pledge to sand the ocean’s goodness. My father’s hands fumble when he leaves my mother nestled in the sea: I am planted. III I’m a rider writing all night long my parents’ enchanting whirl. Daylight sports horizon clearly connecting to the sea in different colors, tresses, light blue, a sail of whitish wisps, then the dark exhaust-tinged mirage and more sludge now in the shallows: still no birds in sight, just the tumbleweeds, disengaged from their parent-roots, to move with the wind, breathing in and out, the tumbleweed, as its umbilical is free from the old and must take on a god or goddess drifting along. The day is done.
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TUMBLEWEED JUSTICE
By Michael Jerry Tupa
It was the summer of ‘83,
when L’il Slow Joe, last name Dundee,
appeared on the far horizon,
with the shimmering sun just risin’
smell of pancakes and sizzling bacon
lingering in the glowing dawn.
Sheriff Green and deputy were gone,
only real law left was Doc Myron Braun
asleepin’ on his small office cot,
dreamin’ colorful dreams of naught,
while into town Dundee jockeyed,
rollin’ in like a lonely tumbleweed.
Only 5-foot-4 and red peach fuzz
no one knew, or cared, who he was,
just a boy ridin’ on a high horse,
following a lonely, uncharted course,
horse stumbling down main street,
both lookin’ for somethin’ solid to eat.
Hot breakfast cost most of a quarter,
sleepy horse was stabled by a porter,
Dundee asked about a hotel room,
crawled into the white-sheet womb
snuggling in for a daylong’s rest,
sleepin’ ‘til sun was deep in the west.
Risin’ in the sunset’s grayish gloom,
Dundee emerged from his warm tomb,
strolling to the nearby noisy saloon,
seeking dinner and a pretty tune,
a perhaps a fast game of cards,
he saw the bar; he gave his regards.
Slow Joe’s money pile mushroomed tall,
while other angry players cast a pall,
one in particular, Cheyenne Pete,
a loud gentleman, most indiscreet
fingered his trigger and questioned why,
suggesting Dundee’s time might be nigh.
It’s a bitter tale to recall, dear friend.
for Slow Joe Dundee it was the end,
Doc Braun didn’t know who to notify
no one around to bid a fond good-bye —
Pete never knew he shot his brother.
(Dundee’s sad horse went to another.)
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WE ROAMED THE SANDS
by Robert L. Penven, Vineland, New Jersey, USA
During my daily walk
by the ocean,
I encounter a curiosity.
a tumbleweed had become
mired in the sand,
close by the tide line.
I asked this strange wonder
how it got there, well knowing
it wouldn’t sacrifice
its secrets.
So, I left it behind
though not out of mind,
for others to contemplate.
Tomorrow will bring
a day of new life for me.
as for the tumbleweed,
the wind must embrace
the burden for journeys to come.
it will surely succeed
through the living world
but stop to share tribute
to those of late.
though it no longer plays
with the gulls and terns,
I will recall this curiosity
with warm thoughts.
************
BLUE ON BLUE
by Miss Cathryn Evans
Rivulets chased after the ebbing tide, sighing softly against the sand, lovers parting just as they had done that distant day.
The sea rushed forward once more to clasp the shores sandy face in a sweet embrace and kiss away the briny tears, only to leave again however fleetingly.
The never ending bitter-sweet love story of the shore.
She wondered if he would return, if he would rush to hold her close once again.
The gentle breeze seasoned her lips and inspired a tumbleweed to skip along the waters edge, a knot of mermaids hair.
The softly foaming manes of white horses lapped playfully at her feet. These gentle colts would grow to fiery stallions with the spring tides, stampeding along the coast, leaping and taking flight, their breath to fall like rain.
The shore had its seasons just like the prairie. Both were ever changing yet never changing.
The sky was a beautiful blue. Blue on blue on blue above the graphite shaded sea. It reminded her of his eyes. They showed his moods just as clearly. Were they still bright and alive or were they dead and turning milky as his body lay torn in a bloody, muddy battlefield?
She shook herself. She knew he’d return just as surely as she knew she’d still love him no matter how broken this war left him. Civil war. There was nothing civil about it. A sour taste crept into her mouth.
Turning, she walked slowly toward the path that would eventually wind its way to their small house with its few acres. Her skirts felt heavy, the bottoms darkened by the water. Heavier still was the rifle she carried. It dwarfed her small frame but she clasped it against herself with her small, pale hands. She was glad of the weight. It kept her anchored in the here and now. She’d promised him she’d always carry it. He’d worried the fighting would spread this way but so far the only action it had seen was taking a rabbit or deer by the creek.
She prayed he’d be home soon.
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CATCHIN
by Leroy Trussell
See’in yearlin rump,tail a wavin’.
Horse in a lather.
Tryin’ my patience,this misbehavin’.
Hand full of rope to gather.
Caught up in the slack.
Uh’ chasen yearlin bones.
Just a comin’ off Cedar Back.
Sure’nuf a flyin’and kickin’ up stones.
My ol’ horse,breakin’ brush.
In a weed eatin’ style.
A airy downhill thrush,
Over a Cedar Back rock pile.
Stickin’ low in the saddle.
On the heels of this-here critter.
Thorn’brush,cactus,and mesquite ta’ battle.
But ain’t no fancy greenhorn quitter,
Ol’ bronc still between my knees.
Throws my loop.
Catchin’ them bawl’lin horns with ease.
Then tryin’ ta’ recoup.
Now the catchin’ get’in tougher.
An the Sun,is get’in low.
Somehow a little rougher.
Than this old Cowpoke us’ta know.
************
A TUMBLEWEED ON THE SHORE by Smokey Culver Did it drift in from the sea, or roll in from the plain? that tumbleweed knows only where it's been It travels on its journey where it stops along its way for just awhile, then rolls away again It wanders down the sandy shore as salty breezes blow for miles and miles not caring where it's bound Like some old driftin' cowboy never staying in one place no roots to keep it anchored to the ground A tumbleweed's a symbol of the freedom of a time before the barbed wire fences came along An image of the roving lifestyle, sleeping 'neath the stars a life we hear about in cowboy songs It rolls along to music that's created by the sound of waves as they come splashing in the sand Of dry winds 'cross the desert or the thunder of a storm that soaks the ground in fields and pasture lands If that ol' tumbleweed could talk about where it has been the places that it's passed along its way I'd sit and listen closely to its stories one by one about its travels every night and day That spirit of an old time cowboy in a brushy heap that moves along, takes little time to rest It never settles down, and I know that it never will that tumbleweed, an icon of the west...
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SALT OR SAND
by Andy Kerr-Wilson
Comes a time
when we all
are tried and tested.
Comes a time
when we all
are measured up for bigger things.
Past paths and footsteps
bring us to it.
Decisions, avoided or postponed,
made in haste or agony.
And now,
all distractions and delays exhausted,
we stand on the edge of things,
confronted.
Comes a time
when we all
are alone with our own hearts.
Comes a time
when we all
are faced down by ourselves.
A journey’s end or its first acts.
A leap of faith or a final chapter.
Fresh starts or the last loose ends.
And now,
whether the dark unknown or the too familiar,
we are asked to find the courage,
within.
Comes a time
when we all
are up against it.
Comes a time
when we all
taste salt or find sand.
Time’s currents swirl,
and we choose.
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TUMBLEWEED
by Arthur Davenport, The Big Island, Hawaii, USA
Red sun was born this morning,
I rose to watch through the peachy haze.
As the wind blew, I heard her calling,
For today, we are one,
You and me, summer is our name.
Tumbleweed, rumbling, tumbling,
knows the wind, she’s a friend.
Wild and free, just like me, tumbleweed, tumbleweed.
Don’t mistake me for somebody,
somewhere, somehow, that you once knew.
I’m not your daddy, or your old boyfriend,
or anyone who put you through,
the lover’s grindstone, fighting dust storms,
chasing ghosts that you once knew.
Didn’t you? Tumbleweed?
Tumbleweed, rumbling, tumbling,
knows the wind, she’s a friend.
Wild and free, just like me, tumbleweed, tumbleweed.
Woke up feeling lonely this morning,
Thinking about roots and a room with a view.
A hometown boy, with the simple joy
of settling down with a girl like you,
Yea you, you tumbleweed.
Tumbleweed, rumbling, tumbling,
knows the wind, she’s a friend.
Wild and free, just like me, tumbleweed, tumbleweed.
More than I can express to you
lies sleeping, dreaming, drowned.
The well is deep, eternal spring,
drink deep this life you found, tumbleweed.
Tumbleweed, rumbling, tumbling,
knows the wind, she’s a friend.
Wild and free, just like me, tumbleweed, tumbleweed.
October Issue- Week 4
October 22, 2013
‘Chuck Wagon Eats’– “In my many journeys as a chef: Boy Scouts, trail drives, camp outs etc., I’ve made Hatch Chili Stew, and most recently for a crowd of twenty in the Pine Barrens while hunting down the Jersey Devil.” Managing Editor CPP, Elizabeth Akin Stelling
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JAYHAWKED
Send Kansas to me in a sun shower.
You said you’d come home with a rainbow.
Don’t want fraidy hole siren hook echoes—
or thunder god flashes of ego. I want scissor-
tails clipped to a windshear, to clear me a path
through your switchgrass. No rope-jumping
Jayhawk squawk-tongues in a squall, or campfire
myths hawking ghost rain. I’m that torn-stalk
sunflower you stuck like a pig in a hog wallow
next to a cornfield. I want flag-side-up roses
round a two-story soddie near an artesian spring
in the tallgrass, with a fresh holstein heifer rich
on alfalfa hay staked-out next to a new butter
churn. Or I’ll muster a posse to lasso your ass
to the dilated tail of a wall cloud, and hog-tie
your spurs to a rodeo bull—spinning pirouettes
through a herd of wild mustangs.
Kevin Heaton is originally from Kansas and Oklahoma. He now lives and writes in South Carolina. His work has appeared in a number of publications including: Raleigh Review, Foundling Review, Beecher’s Magazine, The Monarch Review, and Mixed Fruit. His fourth chapbook of poetry, ‘Chronicles,’ was published by Finishing Line Press in 2012 . He is a Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets 2013 nominee.
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MEETING UP AT EARL’S
The goldstone glitter of Gallup doesn’t
Begin here, but native vendors
Shine walking through Earl’s Café,
Route 66, offering art with pride:
Sleeping Beauty Turquoise and Kingman,
Zuni Petit-Point, Red Coral, Spiny Oyster Shell,
Lapis, Horse-Hair Pottery, Heishi Beads.
“Silver’s shot,” the Navajo artist says,
“Can’t touch the price so we work
With copper, sell it cheap.”
Spirit-lined woven rugs: as the weaver finishes
The rug, she leaves a white wool thread in the corner
Welcoming dreams of the next rug’s design.
Sumac baskets fetch gas money to travel home.
Animal fetishes and mud pots grace tabletops.
Red and green chili, corn tortillas in
Buffalo pottery and blue water plates.
Warm bread pudding for dessert. Greenthread tea.
We amble outside – vendors sitting at card tables,
Laughing, selling Concho Belts, Dream Catchers,
Cell Phone Charms. “So, where are ya from?”
Elaine Dugas Shea has lived in Montana for several decades, but still misses the ocean. She enjoyed a career in social justice working with American Indian Tribes and civil rights. Her writing is featured in Third Wednesday*, South Dakota Review, *the anthology *The Light in Ordinary Things, *the anthology *Hope Whispers, *Front Range Review, CAMAS, Spillway*, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, the anthology When Last on the
Mountain: The View from Writers over Fifty, Montana Voices Anthology and elsewhere.
October Issue- Week 2
October 7, 2013
Author Unknown- Photograph from the mid-1870s of a pile of American bison (high plains) skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer. Courtesy of the . |Source=http://www.raeky.com/bison/, originally Burton Historical Collection, Detroit P
Its a shame what our ancestors did, used up what we could, even the land. Once a plot of land yielded gains for the farmer, they moved on further west and began again, as opposed to alternating planting and letting land rest for a season.
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Glance Bandit
I tried to steal them constantly—in rearview
mirrors and staggered side by side, through
the screened-off window of a trailer
in your backyard. I wanted to slip
where you slept, purposely forget
to pack an extra sleeping bag
forever, and bust my mouth up
until please don’t go so far from me
sounds something like: I hope you love
California. You will love California.
Dig any hole you want.
I will come to you.
Lily Goderstad obtained her MFA in poetry from The New School. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry Blog, and is forthcoming in Dark Matter Journal and Vine Leaves Literary Journal. She currently lives in Queens, NY.
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BUS RIDE
Down the road,
a young boy walking in the dust.
A bus passes, whizzing by,
upsetting the cows and the flies.
‘I wonder where it’s going,
could it be Japan, or maybe Mexico.’
‘I’d like to see a bullfight.
Or maybe London,
with the funny-looking hats.’
‘Or Rome, or France.
Oh well, maybe just even Texas.’
He continues
down the road,
walking in the dust,
with only six pennies
and a rock in his pocket.
Mike Tupa began writing poetry at age 16 — during a car trip along a leafy, mountain road — and hasen’t kicked the habit since. A two-year church mission in Italy, a four-year active duty stint in the Marine Corps and four years of college haven’t cured him of any literary affliction. Some of Mike’s other publishing credits include poems printed in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Calliope Poets & Writers, and the Write Place at the Write Time.
October Issue- Week 1
October 1, 2013
Tombstone- ‘Town Too Tough To Die’
Managing Editor, Elizabeth Akin Stelling visited Tombstone in 2010, and survived the heat, or was it the OK Corral reenactment…
Tombstone was founded in 1877 by a prospector named Ed Schieffelin. Ed was staying at what was then called Camp Huachuca (wa-chu-ka) as part of a scouting expedition against the Chiricahua (chir-i-cow-uh) Apaches. During his time there he would venture out into the wilderness “looking for rocks”, all the while ignoring the warnings he received from the soldiers at the camp. They would tell him, “Ed, the only stone you will find out there will be your tombstone”. Well, Ed did find his stone. And it was Silver. So, remembering the words of warning from the soldiers, he named his first mine The Tombstone.
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WHITMAN REVISITED
When I heard the learned astronomer
From proofs and charts and periodic tables
H&R diagrams, overheads, and visuals,
With power points to show the history of stars
From flowers to quarks to quasars,
To the theory of everything
As all greatest mysteries unfolded
From hydrogen to hogs, to Hectors,
And among all the applause, I felt sick
And arose and went outside for some fresh air
Where looking up I beheld the silence of the stars
Until I realized I was in the planetarium.
Clinton Van Inman Born in England, BA 1975 San Diego State University, high school teacher in Tampa, lives in Sun City Center, Fl with his wife Elba. One of the last Beats still standing and still banging the drum (slower now) for the Cause.
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I Wasn’t Born a Cowboy
I wasn’t born a cowboy, but I’ve done my level best
to earn the right to be called one today
I’ve shoveled up the stalls, unloaded tons of feed and hay
I’ve even milked some cows along the way
My childhood home was not a ranch, though on the country side
we had a few ol’ chickens and of course
I rode my bike for several miles each day come rain or shine
so I could care for my beloved horse
I didn’t have a thousand acres, or a herd of cows
but I could rope and tie a “Bramer” calf
And I could nail the shoes on dang near any horse around
been throwed and every time I climbed right back
No, cowboys may not all be born, cause some of us are made
like poor folks who grow up and make their way
To fame and fortune, that’s how cowboys do it, difference is
we don’t get rich like them, just draw our pay
I’m proud to call myself a cowboy and I know for sure
that others who have earned the right will say
That nothin’ good comes easy, but you hang on for the ride
get bucked off, get back on, the cowboy way…
Smokey Culver was born and raised in southeast Texas, and has lived there all his life. He writes music and poetry about whatever comes to mind, mostly farmers and ranchers and down home folks. The Lord has blessed him with an ability to put thoughts into words that generally make sense, and even stir up emotions sometimes. I have recently joined the board of directors of Musicians, Artists , Authors, Poets, and Storytellers (MAAPS) of Texas as the person to oversee the cowboy poetry issues. My poetry link- Smokey Culver via FB
February 2013- Week 4
February 25, 2013
The Shooting Star
Midnight splendor
Tell me cowboy,
what was your wish?
Stars shoot first
and ask questions later.
Virginie Colline is a French translator living in Paris. You can read her latest poems in
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*/Paniolo/*
by Clark Crouch
He’s a paniolo
on a volcanic range
minding herds of cattle,
it’s really not so strange.
He’s a paniolo
on these, the lava lands.
He’s a paniolo
far from the beach’s sands.
His ranch is quite ancient
from ‘fore the Texasrange;
from eighteen nine ’til now
there’s been so little change.
His ranch is very large…
puts other spreads to shame;
multi-thousand acres
brings paniolo fame.
His ranch is furtherest west,
and off the continent,
three-thousand miles away
on an isle of content.
There on the mount’nous slopes,
his herds of cattle roam.
He’s a paniolo;
Hawaiiis his home.
Aloha paniolo
on the lava lands.
Aloha, paniolo
February 2013- Week 3
February 18, 2013
“illo: cowboy-coat=scratch.
It’s well known that an artist becomes more popular by dying, so I’m typing this with one hand while pummeling my head with a frozen mackerel with the other. I’ve done art for several magazines, newspapers, websites, commercial and governmental clients, books, and scribbling – but mostly drooling – on tavern napkins. I also create art pro bono for several animal rescue groups. I was awarded the 2004 James Award for my cover art for Champagne Shivers. I recently illustrated the Cimarron Review, Stories for Children, and Still Crazy magazine covers. Take a gander ( or a goose ) at my online gallery: _www.angelfire.com/sc2/cartoonsbycartwright_ (http://www.angelfire.com/sc2/cartoonsbycartwright) . And please hurry with your response – this mackerel’s killin’ me! Your pal, Steve Cartwright”
Heartache and Pards
His words were plain and to the point,
“Sometimes this life just sucks.
She does her best to throw ya down,
She boogers and she bucks.”
The cowboy knew the trail I rode,
The steep and rocky way.
I came for lies and platitudes,
But truth was all he’d say.
“You’re gonna hurt a good long time,
Ain’t nothin’ can be done.
You’ll ride awhile in blackest night,
Before ya see the sun.
The pain you feel ain’t nothin’ new,
Just look around, and know,
That scores of riders up ahead,
Have passed the way you’ll go.”
His thoughts were far from comforting,
Not what I came to hear.
His kindness smoothed their edges though,
And helped to calm my fear.
“There’s some will buckle to the test,
Some barely make it through.
But you, you’re tough. You’ll be just fine.
I’ve seen what you can do.
Remember that I’ll be right here,
When livin’ feels too hard.
If you should ever need a friend,
Just holler for yer pard.”
Debra G. Meyer’s was born in Brooklyn, New York, where she spent the first 10 years of her life. Her family then moved to Crane,Indiana. Debra married in 1974 at the age of eighteen, finished her education at Indiana State University in 1977, and by the age of 30 had two children and a job teaching elementary school. She wrote my first cowboy poem in 2007 after visiting a cowboy gathering in Fort Worth, Texas. Now 57 years old, have a small farm in Putnam County, Indiana, still teach school, and absolutely love writing cowboy poetry.
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GUN FIGHT AT THE DIAMOND K CORRAL
It was one of those days at the ranch when you sensed something was going to happen—something fun but probably slightly dangerous. Grandpa, Uncle George and I were gathered on the back porch of the Bachelor Shack. On the agenda was a shooting match with the usual hyperbole regarding one’s expertise. Grandpa raised the ante to a bottle of Uncle George’s Courvoisier to the winner or, in the unlikely event that he lost, the same prize which he would obtain at the bar of the Rogers Hotel in Idaho Falls. Grandpa was generous and offered Uncle George a small victory sip. My uncle was “powerful annoyed” because first his cognac was dearer than life and second there was a strong possibility that his Dad would out shoot him. Furthermore his Dad knew exactly how to gore his ox. The shooting was over before it started. It wasn’t even close as the “hawkeye” punctured ten out of ten tin cans at 75 yards.
Uncle George was very unhappy and Grandpa was doing his best to restrain his gloating about his smashing victory. We retired to the front room of the Shack. I found an old seat out of the way and at a respectful distance from the combatants. Uncle George and Grandpa sat on the cots facing each other. They downed the bottle of cognac and then the conversation and its volume escalated. The egregious acts which followed became the stuff of legends.
Taking casual aim Grandpa shot a hole near the bottom of one of Uncle George’s gallon cans of honey and the resultant flow was spectacular and catastrophic. Then without a pause he shot a bottle of Hennessy where it had rested a long time under its owner’s savoring glance. Uncle George was furious—he had lost two bottles of cognac and a can of honey.
Before outrage set in, Grandpa was heading down the road with remarkable speed toward the ranch house. According to a reliable source, he ran upstairs and hid in the closet.
Within seconds Uncle George burst through the door shouting,
“Where is he? I’m going to kill him.”
In her customary calm voice Grandma said. “Put down the gun, Junior. You know he didn’t mean anything.”
Uncle George was still indignant, “Didn’t mean anything!” He detailed the damages and his grievances.
Grandma raised her hand and declared, “There will be restitution. Now put down the gun!!”
Uncle George did and the crisis was averted. In a few days Grandpa was seen heading toward the Bachelor Shack with a gallon can of honey and two bottles of Courvoisier—-a special affirmation of the wondrous love between father and son.
Later Grandma asked me to recite the events of the great shoot out. She listened and pronounced, “Those damn fools. They could have killed my grandson.”
I replied, “Maybe not Grandma, I was ready to duck.”
Michael J. Keyser in his formative years spent summers and other free time at the family ranch, the Diamond k located in southeastern Idaho. He graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in English. While there, he won the John B. Wanamaker Prize for Excellence in English Composition.
Mr. Keyser served as the President of the American Cancer Society, Cuyahoga County Unit. He was also a Park Commissioner in Hudson, Ohio. For several years he served on the Board of the Summit-Portage County Health Systems Agency.
He also has published four works of fiction. His hobbies are writing, walking and woodworking. Mr. Keyser is very active in his church with outreach ministries serving senior health facilities.
February 2013- Week 2
February 12, 2013
The Lonesome Cowboy
The lonesome cowboy, he’s out on a roam.
With thirty miles of fence to mend, and today’s grown old.
He finds an old cotton tree, says: “Guess here tonight I’ll be…”
He throws down his saddle and poke,
pulls out some hard tack, coffee and a smoke,
and the frayed-edged letter from Maria, the only one who wrote.
The lonesome cowboy, he’ll pass the night away,
The Hotel of a Million Stars, that’s where he likes to stay.
He don’t got no house, don’t pay no rent.
Out on the range, he’s so content.
A new moon’s on the rise, he’s searching the starry sky,
Thinking about Maria, and her boy, who’s got his eyes.
The lonesome cowboy he’s tired, he calls it a day.
Lays down his head to rest, he dreams the night away,
of Colorado, and pasture sweet, tall green grass, wading through waste deep.
On his cow horse with his cow dog, the cowboy drives ’em on,
up to Colorado from New Mexico, he’s dreaming on and on and on.
The lonesome cowboy, he’ll pass his life away.
He’ll be riding herd, and mending fence, he’ll even put up some hay.
He don’t like concrete, it kind of hurts his feet.
His cowboy boots don’t wear even on a street.
There’s just one thing that he wants. That’s to find the love he lost.
He’s whispering to the wind, and he sends her his kind thoughts.
Yea, he’s whisperin’ to the wind, and he sends her his kind thoughts.
Yea, he’s whisperin’ to the wind, and he sends her his kind thoughts.
Going to Maria, Maria…
Espero te, siempre, mi amor, mi amor perdido, Maria…
(I’ll wait for you, forever, my love, my lost love, Maria)
Arthur Davenport’s musical career spans 30 years of songwriting and
performance. He first started playing in the Washington D.C. folk
scene in the 1980’s and then moved on to the southwest scene during
the 90’s while living in New Mexico.
Arthur has been featured on National Public Radio performing his song,
“Lonesome Cowboy,” specially written for a cowboy music compilation
album entitled “‘Round-em Up!” Arthur now lives in Hawai’i where he
has been a house musician at the Hilo Palace Theater for the past ten
years.
************
A LACY VICTORIAN VALENTINE
Sweet Elizabeth
Can you feel the ride and rise of the sun
This mid-February day bucking against
The rusted spur and crumbling saddle of Jack Frost?
We done got the heifers all calved
Mostly in the ice of January nights
I reached into more than one cow
Afraid with the strange pain spewing new life onto the prairie
Turning her calf to touch light.
The coyotes so full of after birth
Gave the wobbly newborns a free pass
To rise and walk with their mothers.
The sun is frisking more each day
And a tired cowboy can hope for a short ride its in warm rays
To ask you to wander with him a while behind the old barn
To that spot I know where the first buttercups each year
Slip up between the patches of melting snow
I put on my new jeans and a clean shirt and my Sunday go to meeting Stetson
Cleaned the mud off my boots and even shined them.
It shore would be nice if you could walk with me
In the mothering breeze near
That weather beaten barn
With its sides testifying for Mail Pouch tobacco
“Treat yourself to the best”
In fading red and yellow painted by a dead hand some half century ago
Persisting like my feelings for you as the years say adios
To yesterday’s yearlings.
I wanted to share this lacy Victorian valentine
My great granddaddy gave my great grandmamma
Here on the ranch,
He warn’t no better with words than I am
But the pink lace and the frills and the buttercups
Would talk his feelings for her a whole lot better than his wind chapped lips
And tongue rusted from the silence of riding alone.
Tyson West is a is a traditional western poet whose aesthetic continually shape shifts. He watches the Northwest with veiled and hooded lynx eyes, broods among the conifers and quarrels with Coyote. He has a degree in history, but writes a variety of poetry styles, and has written a series of poems around Spokane Garry who is our local magical Indian. One of Tyson’s Western poems was published in Spoke Magazine called “Floorshow”, which is based on a picture of a 1922 floorshow in the Davenport Hotel which photo you can find on line. He lives in the middle of Eastern Washington, which is definitely cowboy country. There are two Washingtons, Eastern and Western, and they are as different as a Mocah Mint Latte with organic goats milk and black boiled coffee at a chuck wagon fire.
February 2013- Week 1
February 5, 2013
Ballad Of Rufus Hartz
First time I ever seen her was in the Rodeo parade
Jesse Sue ridin tall by her pa there in the cavalcade
Me I had a right good view, as the clown with the broom and pan
Sweepin’ up them hot horse apples and puttin’ em in the can.
See Billy didn’t have no sons, his wife a long time ago
Had run off one night with a deputy come up from Del Rio.
Since then him and Jesse Sue they run their ranch alone
Hunnert and forty acres of hardpan, flint and stone.
Their ranch raised Buckin’ Broncos for to sell to rodeos.
Mighty tough work, I reckon just ‘bout everyone knows.
Wranglin’ broncs is cowboy tough and it’s easy to git hurt
But Jesse Sue and her daddy never minded dirt nor work.
Now the Rodeo market ever’one knows is pert’ much a bumpy ride
Billy figured just to be safe, he need sumthin’ on the side.
Now hogs is sure fast money, and raisin’ ‘em aint much fun.
But Big Black pigs will market just under a quarter ton.
Big Blacks, was a new kind of breed
Round here they’d never been seen
On accounta them hogs, while they grow mighty big
They tend to git powerful mean.
But the brood sow never quit turnin’ out choats
A reg’lar piggie machine
So when the Rodeo market was cold or flat,
Them pigs paid the bills in between.
They’re fierce them Big Black hogs,
They’ll fuss and fight at the trough
Snarlin’ and bitin’, pushin’ and shovin’
By God don’t them hogs play rough.
So Billy rigged him a feed chute
Then he’d never have to go in.
He’d feed them murderous Big Blacks
Him standin’ outside the pig pen.
Other day I seen her sittin’ tall on her Appaloosa mare
Her hand above her eyebrows blockin’ out the glare
Over by the water tank I was hidin’, layin’ low down in the draw
Of course I weren’t s’posed to be there, on accounta Jesse’s pa.
He’d ordered me off’n their place and he threatened to call the law
He’d seen me a’ peekin through the winder of an evenin’ late last fall.
The man don’t understand there aint no harm in a’ lookin’
Watchin’ through the winder pane at a pretty girl jist cookin’.
Yesterday I seen her it was at Old Gumps Feed and Seed
Helpin’ her daddy Billy, they was stackin’ sacks o’ feed
Slingin’ bags of horse feed from the tailgate to the cab
Pigtails shinin’ golden in a shirt of pretty plaid.
Now Billy’s eye’s don’t see so good, and his hearin’s a total wreck
So creepin’ round the ranch house is much easier than you’d suspect
So tonight I’m gonna slip to her winder, jist to take me a little peek,
And watch the pretty fourteen year old get ready to go to sleep.
Late that night Jesse Sue awakened, them pigs was a raisin all hell
Somthin’ in their food shoot she could hear it clear as a bell
Why was daddy feedin those bruisers there in the dark of the night?
Then the pigs got all quiet, she rolled over and put out the light.
The deputy and the coroner lifted what was left to the ambulance
“Crazy as a bedbug, old Rufus he never had any sense.
And whatcha reckon he was doin’ in Jesse Sue’s pig sty at night
With them hogs was known to be vicious and ever so quick to fight?”
“There ain’t no accountin’ with a bad sort, one like that old Rufus Hartz
Ain’t it awful what them hogs has done, ‘specially to his lower parts.”
Death by accident was the verdict that day at the coroner’s inquest.
In a plain pine box the sheriff and her daddy laid Rufus Hartz to rest.
Gary Ives is a retired Senior Chief Petty Officer who lives with his wife and two
big dogs in the Ozarks where he grows apples and writes.
You can find more of his work and other ramblings here- Gary Ives
All work appearing in Cowboy Poetry Press is copyrighted and belongs to the author and cannot be reprinted or copied without their written permission. Unless artist is specified all photos and artwork are property of Elizabeth Akin Stelling, Managing Editor of Cowboy Poetry Press; please do not use or copy any of them without her written permission. All others are property of photographer and artists, same applies.
December- Week 2
December 10, 2012
Call The Fire Joe
Cookie, I know your dark drinkin’ secrets
But you got no notion of mine
So we can talk around this dying campfire
While the moon limps down like a three legged coyote.
I don’t care if some fruity song writer
From New York City claims out here we call the rain Tess, the fire Joe and the wind Maria,
The embers of this fire is burning out nameless
While we hang this last bottle of whiskey
And rehearse our eulogies for its funeral.
Our campfire don’t need no name
Not like our buddies
We drove with on yesterday’s trails
And who are the dust we choke on today.
Cookie, you got even more grey whiskers and fewer teeth than I do
These young bucks snoring away in their bedrolls
Couldn’t handle the whiskey or the truth under this clear black sky
Nor are they even going to appreciate that some of the stars is missing
Since they can’t see yesterday’s sky.
That Jimson boy rides frisky and free reminds me
Of my pardner Joe just after the war
Same strawberry blond hair and easy laugh
We shared many a bottle and many a hard dirty ride
And many a lady at Miss Lucy’s sporting house
But we could only share feelings up to that line
That a real man draws
For fear he will be less of a man.
There was them two ladies
Miss Susan and Miss Elspeth
That Joe and I would pass back and forth
Neither was any great looker
Not like some other younger slim fillies Miss Lucy kept in her stable
I’d go upstairs with Miss Susan and Joe with Miss Elspeth and next payday we would trade across
Older and a bit stockier
They still looked perfect after the whiskey started playing the piano.
They conversed about more than the coins
And the arrival of the next stagecoach
They could see the magenta in the sunset and puce in the cactus blossom
If we weren’t cowboys and needin’ to drive the herds up this Goodnight Loving trail
We might have ridden with them on a good night lovein’ trail of our own
A few cows and an couple quarter sections
Miss Susan could almost see the lace of the sins in my soul
And loved me anyhow
Cotton Eyed Joe
Where did you come from?
Where did you go?
I know where my Joe rode off to
We buried him in Wyoming
Too far from a town to carry his body
I’ve always wondered if I knew then
What I learned in all those starry nights
Silent except for the dust and the voices of the cattle
That there ain’t no great eye of God watching us
Or even if he was
Would even care how close Joe and I could have gotten.
Fearing mostly the scorn of the other young men who was thinking they was going to live forever
And the whuppings from our daddy’s
We high tailed it from any feeling that a silk dress is something purdy
Not just the body of the lady that’s wearing it
After all these years of hard saddles and even harder women
I just wonder if there was some soft place we was missing
Where we might want to bed down for a while
Some place near cool water
Before I sleep with Joe under this hard prairie soil.
Tyson West is a is a traditional western poet whose aesthetic continually shape shifts. He watches the Northwest with veiled and hooded lynx eyes, broods among the conifers and quarrels with Coyote. He has a degree in history, but writes a variety of poetry styles, and has written a series of poems around Spokane Garry who is our local magical Indian. One of Tyson’s Western poems was published in Spoke Magazine called “Floorshow”, which is based on a picture of a 1922 floorshow in the Davenport Hotel which photo you can find on line. He lives in the middle of Eastern Washington, which is definitely cowboy country. There are two Washingtons, Eastern and Western, and they are as different as a Mocah Mint Latte with organic goats milk and black boiled coffee at a chuck wagon fire.
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