Category: Cowboy Poetry

THE COPENHAGEN KID

Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , / / by

THE COPENHAGEN KID

I didn’t kill a b’ar when I was only three
but I did start to chew before I was two

They say Copenhagen cowboys have a tendency to lie a bit
usually it’s how young they started and how far they can spit

Now I ain’t got many silver buckles to brag about
but this is for sure and without a doubt
I’ve got the record when it comes to snuff
for the earliest, and shortest, addiction to the stuff

Now my memory’s a little foggy but the legend’s quite clear
that somewhere between my first and second year
My daddy leaned over the crib to kiss me goodnight
with the can in his pocket not sittin’ too tight

It seems from the beginning that I sure liked the stuff
and, in no time at all, ate that whole box of snuff
Legend doesn’t tell my exact shades of green
but I hear there were some that had never been seen

Though out behind barns and sometimes in bars
I’ve tried cigarettes and pipes and a few good cigars
Still when folks pull out that old round can of thar’s
all my colour comes back and they think I’m from Mars

ALBERTA AIR

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Nature / tagged , , , , / / by

ALBERTA AIR
(a song still waiting for the music)

Alberta air, Alberta air
You’ve gotta breathe
that good Alberta air

It rolls in over the mountains
it rolls out over the plains
it smells of age old glaciers
and brand new gentle rains

It’ll cleanse your heart of worries
and wash your soul of pains

for there’s a world of love and kindness there
feel it blowing through your hair
Alberta air, Alberta air

MY COUSIN WAYNE

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , , , / / by

MY COUSIN WAYNE

When Wayne was thirteen
he had the finest blondest hair
the finest features and the finest mind
of all the cousins round

A city boy and cooler about everything than all of us
until we took him hunting

When his first shot hit the rabbit
he ran and cried and held it till it died

At eighteen he quit school with A grades
a month before grad to get a jump on a job
met a girl and bragged of achievement on first date

Over achievement it turned out to be
quick marriage, quick, two children three

Army for security, liquor for the pain
it was twenty years before I saw him again

He was in a downstairs bar
sitting there as coarse and thick as adobe brick

I wanted to roll it all back
reach in for the lost fineness and yank it all inside out

And hold him like the rabbit when he cried
still innocent when it died

HENRY MOORE

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , / / by

HENRY MOORE

Henry Moore was a smart old cowboy
a smart old cowboy was he

Just as sly as a fox
be bought twenty-foot salt blocks
and set them out in West Texas in winter

Where a thousand strong tongues
changed those basic hard foods
into a bunch of reclining nudes

There are times when it bothers my conscience
to see
them hangin’ around London,
New York, and D.C.

Then I remember old Hank is one of the boys
just suckerin’ some dudes with these toys

So I decide not to chip off the bronze

WAVES OF MEMORY

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , , / / by

WAVES OF MEMORY

I was sailing into waves of memory
as I drove to my boyhood home

To find that some heavy breakers
had turned to light light foam

Here I walked for miles in freedom
and my home was warm and real

And here my good dog saved me
from a coyote’s tender meal

Here all my innocence was known
And most of it shattered too

As I remembered what people said
and then what they might do

I thought that I could face those waves
with the things that I now know

But I was more than a little surprised
by the strength of the undertow

OLD WIVES LAKE MASSACRE

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , , , / / by

OLD WIVES LAKE MASSACRE – THE LEGEND

About a hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, in what is now south west Saskatchewan, a band of Cree camping on the shore of a prairie lake were surrounded by a much larger band of Blackfoot warriors.

In order to save the lives of the young and strong, they slipped out under cover of darkness while the old and infirm stayed behind to keep the fires burning and keep up the appearance of an occupied camp.

When the Blackfoot attacked the next morning they were furious at having been tricked in this way and massacred all of the remaining inhabitants of the camp including all the old wives.

This unusual and powerful occurrence is remembered to this day in the name of the lake

I grew up and ranched along its shores.

OLD WIVES LAKE MASSACRE – THE POEM

I have eaten the beef
that ate the grass
that grew on your unmarked graves

And the sadness I sing, I sing for you
for all sadness is one sadness
all pain one pain
and all treachery one treachery

Many have eaten of the buffalo and the beef
They wake in the night
and do not know why they are sad

The Legend

The Poem

GROWING STONES

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , , , , / / by

GROWING STONES

Each spring on our farm
the old father sun turned up his warmth and
charm
melting the frost deep in the heart of the mother
earth

The
egg babies
thereby created
rose to the surface
to play in the open air
mischievous miscreants all
waiting to jamb diskers and drills
and if they get a little grain to hide in
ambush swathers, combines, and oil pans of
grain trucks

so we had to gather them into
school bus stone boats and wagons and haul
them off to places where they could be with their
older brothers and sisters on the reform school
rock pile

there is still some hope
that someday they can learn to be pillars of the
community

PREMONITION

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , / / by

PREMONITION

Carl Walenda used to say

He only felt alive
when walking the high wire
everything else was just waiting

Some rodeo cowboys feel the same way
for eight seconds on a good day

One day in South America
Carl Walenda checked his tie downs
something he never did

He went up on the wire anyway
and he fell

After all those years of butterflies
it’s hard to tell

which is the black one

TRAIN DAY

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , , / / by

TRAIN DAY

Once a week, once a week
they came from all around, all around
and swelled, and swelled, the size of our young
town

And the chugging grew, and the chugging grew
and the chugging grew, and the whistle blew
and all was new, and the children knew

But now the lines are down, all down
old folks and old dogs in the town
not a child nor a pup, nor a pup
and not one elevator up

DANCES WITH HORSES

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , / / by

DANCES WITH HORSES

And what is the poem of Rusty
who slips at full gallop and picks up all
four feet and sets them down sure on the next
dry spot

Of Lady still so afraid of wire she can buck
fourteen hours tired
if a four inch chunk should strike a hoof

And the dance of the wild mare in the corral
who kicks and one foot goes by on each side of
your head

And of the colt separated from mother’s flank
by a gunny sack in the face and a quick gate,
who turns a tight arc and comes back at you, and
you see it in the eyes and duck and he sails over
taking out the top rail

And you hear that your father gave you the first
compliment you’ve
ever heard of by turning to the man beside him
and saying

“The damned fool will get himself killed someday”