Pink and My Buster Browns

Pink and My Buster Browns My egg hatched north of the border, Pink is my name I come from a proud line of egg- layers, poaching is my game I’ve walked a mile of desert, crossing the Texas sand I’m here to dip my spurs into the waters of the Rio Grande I’ve come to quench a rumor that started on the Mexico side A dandy there’s been crowing and winking his beady eyes He’s got his reputation alright, he earned it long ago But he hadn’t met this Road Island Red, squatting here in Mexico They say he’s a genuine fighting Cock and fast with spur or wing He’s been strutting with the egg-layers and pecking their chicken feed He’s scratching around in Laredo, I hear it’s the common belief Even crowing for the pullets, a double dealing chicken thief I strut into the fouling yard, my eyes shifting around I’ve come to pluck a chicken “A new rooster’s in town The yard is quite and still, not a cackle can be heard There’s no room in this chicken yard for another crowing bird I see him fly from the roost and land heavy on the ground He struts in small circles, as he side-eyes me up and down The time is high noon and we're standing beak to beak I look at that blood red comb and my legs start getting weak His feathers ruffles on his neck, his spurs are gleaming white His wings hang loose and ready, my heart’s not beating right My beak starts to pucker in the shape of a pout I’m flogging it back to Texas, I done chickened out When I was ten years old I was given a little pink chicken for buying a pair of Buster Brown Shoes for Easter. Even though everything was against him he lived and grew up to be a mean Road Island Red Rooster. He took great pleasure in flogging all he could reach even to the point of devising a little trick by tossing a pebble into the air and running to fetch it in order to close the distance to make a strike. My Grandpa was always threatening to blow his head off. He finally jumped a dog over a watermelon rime and was dispatched. Here’s to Pink, the Road Island Red Rooster