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Country Kids Exist On Their Own Planet
By S. Ellen Hopkins
Incredible amenities there:
cumulus ships, afloat in a bold azure sea;
dirt, pulverized by oversized tires,
silk between the toes; pond fishing, bullfrog stalking,
crawdad tug-of-war;
the green perfume of alfalfa, fresh from
the mow; brilliant cockcrow alarm,
quiescent cricket lullabies.
Growing up a city kid, seasonally countrified,
such wonders captivated.
Come evening, Daddy would saddle a trio
of stout ranch ponies, colorful rocking
horses, two paints and a palomino.
Mama so loved the sunset, "Heaven's invitation,"
magenta fire over the vineyards, cooling to soft rose embers.
Astride his golden charger, puffing a fine
cigar, Daddy drank up youth in the dusk.
Years fell away like autumn sequins.
We'd climb into his Way Back Machine,
whisking back before jets made the planet
too small and pavement made it too fast.
"I understood the world then," he'd say,
"when a man's word meant everything."
Sentiment carved in the marble of time.
Now, when deep of night straightjackets
me, denying dreams' sweet release, I
loose memory's magic carpet,
to fly between cumulus ships,
over summer alfalfa and autumn vines
to the back of a paint rocking horse,
and a planet where I belonged.
Poet's Bio
Ellen Hopkins is a freelance writer and poet. She is published children's book author, with 20 titles.
Sunday Morning on Main Street
Hays, Kansas. 1887.
By Thomas D. Reynolds
None in town hurries, though it is almost eleven o'clock.
Grasping his broom, the gaunt barber stabs at the dirt
before his shop, and doesn't even glance down the street.
His duel with the wind continues, with the usual result.
Joseph McCoy, the blacksmith, head pounding from hangover,
trips on a horse pile and falls prostrate before the window,
slicing his hand on broken glass. "Could I have been involved?"
his look seems to say, before he stumbles up and on his way.
Even with blurred vision, he spots the two women in blue,
the curves of their dresses, and satin bows in their hair.
Conversing before the dry goods store, they set their jaws
in disapproval, turning away with shoulders squared.
Heads forward, they pass the saloon without a word.
By noon no one comes to claim them, and none to bury.
Only the north wind has made an effort, stirring a powdery mix
of dirt and dung to transform the black coats to gray,
and to cover the staring eyes with lids of smithy ash.
The men of town will not return until dark,
cutting ice blocks from Pipe Creek for summer use.
It is the barber, snipping away at old man Stadler's hair,
who notices the little red-haired girl in gingham,
staring hollowed-eyed around the corner of the saloon.
Moving to the window with clippers frozen,
suddenly awakened as if from a day-long sleep,
the barber says to Stadler, "Someone should bury them,
or move them, so that children won't have to see."
He remembers his first sight of death, a dead horse
floating down Pipe Creek after an August flood,
how it swirled pinwheel-like in the swift current of his dreams.
"We should cover them up," he tells a sleeping Stadler,
and even begins to move toward the door,
when he watches with relief as the girl steps
around the larger of the two cowboys killed in the brawl,
tripping on his boot, looks down to find blood on her hand,
but only wipes it on her dress and walks on, skips even.
Poet's Bio
Thomas Reynolds teaches at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. In his work, he combines his interests in history, folklore, and poetry. He has been published in: Alabama Literary Review, New Delta Review, Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, The MacGuffin, The Cape Rock, Potpourri, Miller's Pond Poetry Magazine, Tryst, Midwest Poetry Review, and American Western Magazine.
Night Song
By N. Ross Peterson
When I was a young girl, an orphan,
I worked in a noisy cafe.
Brought out the dishes, and took them back empty,
And did so again the next day.
I hadn't the time to be talking
To every young man came along,
Till one day a cowboy came in off the street,
Whistling my daddy's old song.
The song my daddy used to sing,
Driving our wagon out West.
"Green Grow The Lilacs," and so on.
I couldn't remember the rest.
So I had to ask that young cowboy
Where he had heard that old song.
"Green Grow The Lilacs," I called it.
He said, "No," he said, "Strawberry Roan."
"The kind of a song that a cowboy might sing,
As he rides 'round a trail-herd at night.
So they'll hear him coming, and won't get surprised.
Keeps them from taking a fright."
I asked the cowboy to sing it,
The song he called "Strawberry Roan."
But he said, "Not in here."(folks was laughing.)
I said, "Sometime come see me alone."
So he sang it for me, while we courted,
And I'd sing "The Lilacs," or try.
Most of the words, I don't know to this day,
Though I could never see why.
For when I was sleeping, and dreaming,
A child with no family near,
I'd dream that my daddy was singing.
"Green grow the lilacs," I'd hear.
But after I married my cowboy,
I only could hear his own song.
And sing it myself, while we made us a home,
And the dusty old years ran along,
Until we had grown old together.
Our children were raised up and gone.
The cowboy became an old rancher.
Died old, but I'm still hanging on.
Still got my ranch, and my cattle,
And my crew, but I live all alone.
Except for a voice that I hear in my dreams,
Singing, "The Strawberry Roan."
Poet's Bio
N. Ross Peterson is retired, married, and has an extended family. His poetry and works of fiction has been published in Tucumcari Literary Review, Words Of Wisdom, poetry with American Western Magazine.
No Annie, No Dale
By Catherine O'Canna
It's not all white leather and fringe,
Or even the state they got you in.
Its not the curls beneath the good guy's hat,
Or the pose and prose and the stage your at.
Its not the song and the horse and the trail,
Or the pretty face that suggests the girl.
Its not the applause of a Wild West show,
Or the chills and spills of the rodeo.
Its the grit and grime, ain't no tropical tan.
Its the jeans and the kerchief that belong to a man.
Its the grafting youll remember and that orphaned calf;
The trick played on a mama, on the babys behalf.
Its exhaustion mirrored in your evening eyes.
Its the pride in knowing you kept up with the guys.
Its the ride of a lifetime just to pass the test.
No Annie, no Dale, just a woman of the West.
Poet's Bio
Catherine O'Canna is a photographer and writer, living in Colorado. She publishes for newspapers and trade magazines and has been published twice in the past here in American Western Magazine. An historian with the local pioneer history museum, Catherine has a fascination for the true historical depiction of western women. She's currently working on a history of women photographers in the early West.
Gus
By Thomas D. Reynolds
Gus was our only entertainment
on that drive to Emporia,
our own brains so full of dust
we barely remembered who we were.
But Gus was clear each moment
the facts of his young life,
troubles he'd traveled
changing night after night.
None of us ever called the lie,
or even uttered the word.
Two hundred miles to go,
as worn out as we were!
A scrawny kid from Texas
with gimpy left leg,
crossed eyes, flappy ears,
and oval-shaped head.
First trip away from home,
off the parents' pig farm.
For a girl to notice him,
he would have broke his arm.
Gus could have been president
as long as he kept talking,
chattering day after day
while we sat low and sulked.
When we made it to Emporia
nearly three weeks late
without losing our minds,
we had Gus to thank.
He was leaning on a post
the last we remembered him,
not saying a word,
looking weary the first time.
We heard the story later,
how Gus in a serious drunk
crossed the wrong fellow
and was shot in the gut.
He died on Main Street
crumpled on his back,
without any words
to embellish the facts.
The plain hard truth
right down to the letter
was difficult to swallow.
A legend deserved better.
Gus was struck by lightning
not once, but three times.
Or he fell from a window
with a whore twice his size.
We would think and think
till we found the right end
to the legend of Gus,
our comrade and friend.
*~*~*~*~*
Copyright © 2004 by individual poets whose work appears on this page. All rights reserved.
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