October 2014 Issue- Week 1
October 4, 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!
(Click to enlarge)
Watercolor ‘Steeds’ by Anj Marth
Ocean steeds was inspired by a story my great-grandmother told me when I first started riding horseback. Selkies are beautiful horses that live in the sea, and come to shore to tempt people to try to catch them. If you bridle one, or get on its back (it will let you) it will drag you into the deeps with it, and there’s no escape.
Anj Marth was born in the early 70s, and grew up on the east coast of the US, near Philadelphia. She has since moved and traveled all over the country, by road. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest and
considers it home. She works in a variety of mediums and has been a professional,licensed tattoo artist since the late 90s.
Her condensed portfolio can be seen here- Anj Marth Portfolio
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KODACHROME BOOTS
This here’s a tale bout widow Beall and me,
a very close call as far as I can see.
Nearly hung myself from a stout oak tree,
when she proclaimed she’s “a gonna marry thee”!
Now, widow Beall was a comely lass,
much appeal and a cute little…….well.
Dumb as a sheep and not much class,
spit fire temper and a whole lot of sass.
Not fix’n to marry, ner give’n a dang hoot,
rather ride me a bronc, raise hell and shoot.
Single I’ll stay, til I be a grizzled old coot,
and all this started o’er a Kodachrome boot.
A life riding single with a little spare loot,
I’d spent honest big money on Kodachrome boots.
With huge eagle wings, patterns fanciful stitched,
never reckoned on them boots a get’n me hitched.
Them knee high boots just glowed by day,
bright yellar and red with horned lizard inlay.
Strong ride’n heels built up real high,
with side seam piping, blue as the sky.
Chartreuse pull straps above scalloped top,
a rainbow of colors that seemed never to stop.
Big ole eagles, blueish green and dark taupe,
tawdry beauty from some boot makers shop.
Kodachrome boots made from the best of cowhide,
brash as a peacock cowboy on an afternoon ride.
Clean shirt, fresh hat, pants stuffed inside,
One of a kind boots, whispered ego and pride.
When corralled by the widow, I couldn’t break free,
She’d always look down and then I could see,
her eyes come alive, twinkling romance and glee,
It was them boots she truly loved and not really me!
I hatched an idea to get me outta her plan,
and git back on the trail as fast as I can.
Just need to convince my first cousin Stan,
widow Beall needs some lov’n and he is her man.
Got Stan a new Stetson, wild rag and new suit,
a bath, and some tonic, why he looked darn right cute.
And to sweet’n the deal, first time in the chute,
I gave him my pair of those kodachrome boots.
Marc Bradshaw– Though raised in the hills and hollows of central Kentucky, the southwest U.S. beckoned immediately after high school graduation. Over the next 50 years California’s San Joaquin valley and parts south of Bakersfield, in Santa Fe New Mexico, and currently Mesquite Nevada were home to life and
work.
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COME HAVEN OR LOW WATER
when we hear the recorded whoop of
a cowboy cello we’re not truant
only away from our home butte
on the Niobrara
we are the men of earth we have been
and when we reinvent the odor
of horse and hay we ride and forget
what larrupt us to town
there won’t ever be a flareout of
the world or a man-roping event
in the oil range we hold the dream to
on the Niobrara
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COWBOY OF THE SEA
His name is Keealani,
a cowboy of the sea.
Needs the wind upon his back,
that bucking ride to set him free.
He wrestles surf and ocean
gripping tight and holding strong,
waiting for horns blowing
counting seconds short and long.
Got his lasso round his ankle
his bolo tie, a string of shells,
biggest difference in this cowboy
is his fishy stinky smell.
No manure or dirt upon him,
just the residue of sand,
cause this cowboy’s ride is over
when he steps upon the land.
Heather M. Browne is a faith-based psychotherapist and recently emerged poet, published in the Orange Room, Boston Literary Review, Page & Spine, Eunoia Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Poetry Bus, Red Fez, The Muse, An International Journal of Poetry, Deep Water Literary Journal, Electric Windmill, Maelstrom, mad swirl, and Dual Coast. Her first chapbook, We Look for Magic and Feed the Hungry has been published by MCI. She just won the Nantucket Poetry Competition, a semi-finalist in Casey Shay chapbook competition, and has her first collection coming out this winter with Red Dashboard Publishing. Recently widowed from her love of 21 years, she lives with her 2 amazing teens, and can be found frolicking in the waves. Follow her: www.thehealedheart.net
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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.
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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.
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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.
December Issue- Week 3
December 16, 2013
There will be no Week 4 this go round. It’s the holidays and frankly we need a few weeks to recover from all the reading we are doing for the launching of our Red Dashboard LLC Publishing company and its new books. If you are interested in sending us your manuscript to consider for a Summer/Fall 2014 publication, email us at editor@reddashboard.com with a query letter and 5 pieces of poetry, or 10 pages of your short story/desert dime novel material/work.
Yuma Arizona foot hills, taken by our Managing Editor EAS while on a quest for water…
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Boots Crunching on Gravel
“You-all been washing gold along the creek,” I said, “but you never stopped to think where those grains of gold started from. Well, I found and staked the mother lode, staked her from Hell to breakfast, and one day’s take will be more than you’ve taken out since you started work. I figure now I’ll dig me out a goodly amount of money, then I’ll sell my claims and find me some friends that aren’t looking at me just to see what I got.” ~From “The Courting of Griselda” – Louis L’Amour
We started at daybreak with two rifles and plenty of ammunition. We rode out of there with the stars still in the sky. We rode across country with no dust in the sky. All of a sudden two men rode up. Nobody had anything to say but by the looks of it – the pans, the picks, the sacks, they were hunting gold. I looked over at my buddy his name of Jeb and I gave a slight nod. He stared straight ahead eying the men his fingers crawling slowly to his holster. If we had time for words, I’d know what he’d say: “Colt, there’s no such thing as a gunman’s crouch. Might make you less of a target but you need to hold a gun so’s it’s comfortable to you.” The men held their heads high and nodded towards the creek. I softened the grip on my rifle. The odor of stale whiskey lingered in the air. Finally the older of the two lifts his hat up off his head and nods. The younger follows suit. Then Jeb. Then me. And we pass along the trail, everything unguarded.
LB Sedlacek’s poems have been published in publications such as “The Broad River Review,” “Third Wednesday,” “Heritage Writer,” “Circle Magazine,” “Scribe and Quill,” “The Hurricane Review,” and others.
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Behind The Grease Paint
Another performance over and his work is done
Most of the grease paint was gone from his face
His life as a rodeo clown has just begun
It’s this new role he must now embrace
Many years ago he was in the cowboy protection
Making himself a target for fallen bull-riders
Each outin addin bumps,and bruises, to his collection
He’d shuck, and jive as if his feet were on gliders
His movements have been slowed by injury and age
He now walks at a much slower pace
It’s different as a clown takin centre stage
His new life is all about props, pranks, and fillin in space
No more will he be dodgin bulls, and makin saves
Instead he tells stories trades jabs with the announcer
He can no longer do what he craves
Dancing around the arena as if attached to a bouncer
The life of a rodeo clown in the sport that he loves
Is about making people happy with antics and a story.
He plays with audience and a barrel he shoves
It’s not the same as bullfighting you don’t get the glory
Without the grease paint he’s just like me or you
Not the one making them laugh
He’s turned the page on the life he once knew
and found new meaning in his rodeo path.
Behind the grease paint he lives as a clown
And the chance to make people laugh he’ll never turn down.
Geoff “Poppa Mac” Mackay is a storyteller, entertainer, and rodeo clown (as seen in photo above). His poetry and music has been seen and heard- June 2013 Performed Pincher Creek Gathering; June 2013 Performed Manitoba Stampede July 2013; Performed at a CD Release party Palomino Club August 2013; Chosen to Clown Heartland Rodeo Finals September 2013; Performed Souris River Bend Trail ride September 2013; Performed Maple Creek Gathering September 2013; MC’d and Performed Quinton Blair CD Release Party October 2013, and Competing Columbia River gathering, Cowboy Idol- April 2014.
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Ambling With My Companion
Trails intersect,
the criss-crossroads
made us bury
pictures of youth—
hooves of plain-spoke
language, stomped our
dead fallen tracks.
We’re ripping a
part of the land—
are no longer
frequently lost,
free-questrian,
elegant—we
always arrive
somewhere near our
forsaken home.
My ground and yours,
what we lived for—
poems in crowns,
adorned four-fold,
each season’s form
maintained between
forlorn borders.
Summer Is A Hot Kiss Of Death
I felt the crisp wind
take hold of my lips
transforming them into
the desert surface.
It also turned my face
a chronic cold of blue,
like poisoned horse lay
flat under oil-waved sky.
I only cried once.
I stared the two times
you held my grazing body
under white-washed sun.
Courtney Leigh Jameson recently graduated from Saint Mary’s College of California with an MFA in Poetry. Her work has appeared in *Similar:Peaks*<http://similarpeakspoetry.com/2013/06/05/two-poems-by-courtney-jameson/>and is forthcoming in *Clockwise Cat, FLARE, *and *Danse Macabre*. She currently resides in Arizona and is the The Bowhunter of *White Stag Journal*.
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October Issue- Week 3
October 14, 2013
Monsoon rains of San Pedro Valley, “The territory comes alive after the rains, everything turns as green as you can see.”– M. C. (Mike) Hudson was born in Tombstone, Arizona and has lived and loved the life of a cowboy for most of his life. He is an ex-bull rider, who has lived to tell about his experiences, and has helped train youth to ride bulls. As a pastor of a rural church and setting in SE. AZ Mike has worked many of the larger ranches in Arizona and New Mexico, gathering cows, doctoring, sorting, branding (cutting-seems to be the job for a pastor) and roping. He is also embarking on a journey into writing poetry and prose, and was chosen for the October 2012- week 3. You can spot his photos all about CPP if you just explore…
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THE COUNTRY MILE
Mixed with tobacco juice
And red summer clay
It came from the edge
Of the cornfield
The clout that soared
Past the unplowed field
Smashed into the red barn
Scattering the cawing crows.
Clinton Van Inman (TBA)
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APACHE
“When I was young, I walked all over this country;
east and west. I saw no other people than the Apache.
After many summers, I walked again, and found another
race of people had come to take it—how is it?” -Cochise
We wished only to speak sunlight into our hearts.
To follow mountain spirits toward ‘The Giver of Life.’
To own nothing, and everything—bow to no man.
Now, our mesquite and cactus are barren. We carry
life on our fingernails and wait to die.
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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The Alien Invasion Tapes, #87
It was back in ’63 they set down in my wheat field, and I was too damn angry to be scared. I knew that crop was gone and it wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. When they come out of their spaceship—no, no it wasn’t a door that swung down like on a castle,
but a giant car door, like on my Buick?—they come out, three of ‘em no taller than my knee,
and just stared at me, no expression in those big glassy eyes, no sorrow for what they done to my field.
“We come in peace,” they said without sayin’ it out loud but I heard it in my head, and I looked at my flattened, withered wheat and said, “The hell you do.”
Have you ever seen mangled wheat, the stalks cracked, the feathers singed? A whole season: It’s enough to make you cry. And I did, standin’ in the middle of my broken field with those three aliens, wellin’ up, the door to their giant ship propped open, a sickening light pourin’ from inside and slicin’ across my barren field like a knife. They do somethin’ like rock, paper, scissors and one come over and tells me I’m supposed to be some kind of alien ambassador. 100 acres, gone, the exhaust from their craft fellin’ my crop like a tornado, the shoots fallin’ like dominoes, like ambushed soldiers, the stink pourin’ into my nostrils.
“You fellas best be on your way,” I said as patiently as any man who just lost his livelihood can, and for the first time they look around. Sure I think they’re doin’ damage assessment, conjurin’ a way to bring the wheat back, and I picture those fuzzy stalks risin’ like an army of mini Lazaruses across the dead plain, work hard to send that image to them with my mind. But they’re fixed on somethin’ else now, and it’s Tessie, comin’ toward us, haunch-slow, jaws workin’, wheat cracklin’ beneath her bovine hooves. I point to her, my prize heifer, shake my head and give them a firm “NO!” But Tessie and the aliens, they’re starin’ at one another, stock still, as if hypnotized. And even today I wonder what they said that made her walk right past me, through the blade of sharp light and into that shiny crop killin’ machine: You’ll be happier with us, He don’t appreciate you, YOU are the true alien ambassador. So that’s how I lost my wheat and my cow in the same hour.
The man from the insurance company, he don’t believe me, but I know you do. You see this stuff all the time, so I was hopin’ you could talk to ‘im, tell ‘im about the giant car door, the two-foot Martians, a prized cow that trundled, hooves clickin’, into another dimension.
Dorene O’Brien has appeared in the Connecticut Review, Carve Magazine, Connecticut Review, New Millennium Writings, The Cimarron Review, the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Noir and others. She has won the Red Rock Review’s Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the New Millennium Fiction Award, and the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award. Her stories have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and she has won the international Bridport Prize and has received a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Dorene’s short story collection, Voices of the Lost and Found, won the USA Best Books Award.
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
June Issue- Week 2
June 10, 2013
Drinking With the Angels
I don’t claim to be an angel
But I know
I’ll be drinking with the angels when I go
Now, I’m not claiming to be free of sin, nor pure
But there’s one thing that I know for certain sure,
When my time is up here’s what I plan to do:
Before I go I’m gonna have a drink or two
I’ll have a short one for the road, then one for you
I’ll have a chaser for my friends
And maybe while
My elbow bends
I’ll raise a toast to Mom and one to dear old Dad
And when that’s gone I’ll maybe pour me just a tad
To toast the gone, forgotten times
Then, as the midnight hour chimes
I’ll stand the house a round or three to say goodbye
Before I head out to that Big Bar in the Sky
Now, where I’m going, well there ain’t no closing time
And all the spirits in those bottles are sublime
And every hour is happy hour
The angels toast each meteor shower
And the tab you’re running’s stamped Eternity
So pardon me
If I don’t claim to be an angel
But I know
I’ll sure be drinkin’ with the angels
I’ll be drinkin with the angels when I go
Judith Mesch reads like a fish drinks, total immersion, that is, from an early age through a late and lingering adolescence, and wrote feverishly through my teens. Then I stopped writing, stopped reading very much, too, for decades until a few years ago when I started writing bits and pieces, then some light verse, a couple of short stories a little flash fiction. I have two children’s stories epublished on Amazon for Kindle and on Smashwords by Twenty or Less Press. They are actually kind of country, “The Strange and Wonderful Cornfield” and A Circle of Frogs”. I had a few pieces published in ezines and a children’s poem in Off The Coast Journal.
************
Scars
by Dawn Schout
The rough
spot on my knee
from when I fell off
my first pony
onto gravel after taking
a corner too fast.
A thin, pale line
above my elbow
where my horse kicked me
on my bare skin.
A darkened line on the edge
of my cuticle
where Destiny stepped
on my toe before he died,
the pain remaining
after he’s gone.
Furrowed Sky
by Dawn Schout
Long rows of clouds look ready for planting.
If plowed by constant gusts
of wind, stars will start to push through.
************
Prospectin’
You slimy ol’ scoundrel!
Keep comin’ after me
I dare ya! I double dare ya!
You sleazy ol’ geezer
Tryin’ to rope and outwit me
And my buddies
You got a few of ‘em and
I’m still mad as hell
There ain’t no forgivin’
I’m gonna kick your teeth in
And give your arse some scars
You relentless sucker!
I hate your pigeon liver guts
And yer billy goat tenacity
(Learned me that word
From a preacher in a camp once)
Keep comin’ after me
Like them spikes in a gear
Back to back pot shots
Missed again! Ha!
You squirrely varmint
Y’ almost got me this time!
I reckon you’ll catch up with me
One day
Until then, piss on you…Death!
Denise Janikowski-Krewal was born on the south-side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised with a blue-collar upbringing. Her varied work background includes years of writing technical correspondence. She is passionate about storytelling and researching genealogy. Please check out her official website at: The Lost Beat http://denisejanikowskikrewal.webs.com/More of her poetry is available on the lost beat blog
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.
************
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.
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