Best Lassos Poems
W inds whip lassos of snow encumbered razor rodeo ropes
I ce glare blinding beauty stealing sane men’s secret hopes
N ever mind the sun has wandered down a lonesome trail
T ethered now to mountains so the twilight sky looks frail
E dgy nights attack lone hearts with blue brained Northern Lights
R iling men to suicide on endless time dead nights
V Anderson-Throop Jan 2015
Valdez, Alaska
Through the peep hole of Egyptian darkness shackled by conquerors hypnotic scheme
awaits the incarnate spirit of Ra.
Summoned to defend the skies of eternity and the land of death
against the traitors to the throne of the sun god
peace in these savage times shall be your curse.
may your conscience be your pillow
and your wretched hearts your lullaby
you and your puppet slaves will never tame this mane.
there is nothing your lassos can suppress
your skin of deception your pillars of lies and halls of betrayal
will fall to the hum of my dynastic roar
I am the truth the originator of galactic time
your presence was my flatulent secretion
your death will be my orgasmic sigh.
Women of gaze that by-stand my struggle
fan as you may your perfumed air
it is your heart my canines seek
your tongue has collapsed my rump
and stolen my corner stone
may your blood from my mandible spell
Traitor!
written for Isaiah Zerbst's contest, Ancient Egypt.
It’s good to be a cowboy,
just ask my old friend Dane,
who spends his days riding
across the Texas plains,
working for a big ranch,
he cuts, lassos, and herds,
brings them in at round-up,
brands them all in turn.
Works out in the sunshine,
rides hard for his pay,
heads on down to Randy’s
for a drink at close of day.
the bartender there always
shows his picture to cowgirls,
Dane’s a local legend,
on raging bulls he’s twirled.
Some women try to tame him,
one day one might succeed,
but right now he’s just happy
giving them what they need.
It’s good to be a cowboy,
just ask my buddy Bill,
he grew up loving westerns,
I guess he always will.
He loves the boots and hats,
even owns a bolo tie,
if it weren’t for those old movies
he’d have never learned to ride.
Takes trail-rides with his children
out in the country air,
keeps them from their cell-phones,
builds memories to spare.
Takes them to wild west shows,
where old time ballads ring,
doesn’t take much prodding
before the kids start to sing.
It’s good to be a cowboy,
just ask our sheriff Max,
even when out on the job
he still wears a white hate.
Some say that his dark skin
makes the cowboy-look strange,
forgetting all those freed slaves
that once rode the range.
But Max doesn’t give a whit,
he’s an honest, weathered soul,
and every year he dresses up
for the town police festival.
He puts on all his cowboy duds,
plays the old west lawman,
the kids all run up to him
making finger-guns with hand,
But those buckaroos are quick,
he’s never outdrawn a one,
but it’s enough for the sheriff
to see the tykes having fun.
It’s good to be a cowboy,
just ask ol’ Jimmy-Ray,
living down in sunny Georgia,
his feet in the red clay.
he’s never even rode a horse,
but the don't bothered him,
the cowboy code is his bible,
you can see it in his grin.
He’s quite the man of honor,
and will always treat your fair
in his hometown barbecue
if you ever do eat there.
He’s polite to the ladies,
looks each man in the eye,
on days off in his straw hat
his ATV he rides.
He stays loyal to one woman,
his great pride and his joy,
to her he’ll always tip his hat,
it’s good to be a cowboy.
After a long week it is Friday,
and that means it’s time to go
to a corral twenty minutes off,
the weekly circuit rodeo.
Get there early ’cause they always have
a barbeque before it starts,
also basic line-dancing lessons
for ladies and their sweet-hearts.
Drifting through the nearby western store
while things are getting ready,
buy a new belt with an eagle print,
it’s both rustic and steady.
In the ring they’re warming up horses,
preparing them to ride slack,
a teenage girls talks on her cell-phone
while perched on a gelding’s back.
It starts off with some nice pageantry,
a dozen riders with flags,
anthem plays to the stars and the stripes,
makes a free man’s soul feel glad.
I sit way up high in the bleachers,
bronc-busters the first to ride,
unbroken horses don’t like the weight,
they buck, they spin ’round, they dive.
The riders always will get thrown off,
it’s just a question of when,
next the ropers go line up to ride,
chasing steers loosed from the pen.
Lassos flicker in stadium lights,
and slowly they scribe a path,
then swoop down low and seize on a hoof,
how the heck do they do that?
Now the steer wrestlers leap from their mounts,
never fails to bring a cheer,
wonder if they put on resumes
‘Am adept at wrestling steers’?
Things slow down, the trick-roper comes out,
spins a line as if born to it,
then pops balloons from a woman’s head
with a swish of his bull-whip!
Then pony-tails fly behind women,
barrel-racers ride compelled,
moving so fast you’d think they were chased
by the damned devil himself.
Finally men, more crazy then sane,
sit themselves on a huge bull,
two thousand pounds of angry muscle,
testosterone flowing full.
One by one the riders are thrown off,
then the clowns distract the beasts,
buying the rider just enough time,
to scramble back to his feet.
But one young man will not break his hold,
he passes eight second by luck,
just enough to win the night’s small prize,
a hard way to earn a buck.
The crowd is drifting back to their cars
as the sunlight settles low,
cowboys and girls I’ll see again at
the weekly circuit rodeo.
Jenna lived in rural Wyoming lands,
where grass rolled over small ridges and buttes,
a small town way out in the cow country,
where the ranchers still throw lassos in loops.
She was driving out to see her boyfriend,
who owned a ten thousand-acre large spread,
he had a big house, riders and a herd,
and was a keeper, all her girlfriends said.
It struck her funny that he'd done so well,
since her man had not been born around here,
they said when we came here eight years ago
he'd shied away from a mustang in fear!
She supposed he must've overcome that,
since now he rode like a weathered cowboy,
he'd bought his own place, made himself a name,
and had brought Jenna no small bit of joy.
He wasn't expecting to see her now,
but she knew that Calvin would understand,
the diner had been sheer hell this morning,
she'd even been groped by a sketchy man.
She needed a break, to hash this all out,
Calvin always had a way to comfort,
and he liked to say that she was his world,
she was sure that he would be there for her.
When she pulled up the whole ranch was quiet,
the hands must have been all out in the hills,
but she saw Calvin's horse at the corral,
had he decided to just hang back and chill?
If that was the case, it was good for her,
she would've hated being here all alone,
so Jenna walked up the big farmer's porch
and noiselessly entered her boyfriend's home.
She was tied, didn't bother to yell,
just padded upstairs to his big bedroom,
the lights were off but a translucent glow
seemed to pierce through the darkness and the gloom.
Inside she saw a bipedal figure
dressed all up in Calvin's battered work duds,
a flat-faced being with a slit for a mouth,
and two huge eyes, both the color of mud.
The skin was smooth, with no human blemish,
a vibrant, bioluminescent green,
and when the figure turned to see Jenna
she loud out a truly terrified scream!
“Jenna, what--”the creature began to say,
speaking the words in Calvin's own voice,
then slumped down and muttered to itself,
“Well I guess no I don't have any choice.”
There before her eyes the green skin shifted,
the figure became Calvin once again,
he frowned and awkwardly looked to his feet...
“Well, I guess I should explain all this then...
CONTINUES IN PART II
Roy Rogers and Red Ryder rode on that black and white stage—
It was the best of times, to be a kid of any age.
Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy – that Durango Kid—
They kept us shootin’ outlaws and drinkin’ milk – yes, they did!
We ate up that cereal and sent away for those things,
Like trick lassos, milk mugs, masks and those plastic cowboy rings.
It was another time of Mix and Tim McCoy, I’ve heard--
When men rode horses and ‘cowboy’ weren’t a four-letter word!
They have not rode into sunsets, as they were apt to do—
They’re now on the mountaintops of the minds of me and you.
Superhero strobe lighthouse helm hexagonal
Sixty degree angle glass captain bridge
Watchtower for Diminutive Town message
Warns cliff climbers must heed heirachy rule
Soaring steel pylon pinnacle, men microscopic
Sextant lassos moon coins for seafarers
Capsized as whitecaps vomit precarious
Admiral amends an untoward son with his wallet
Navigator Nerida gazes star bright broadwater
Nile writhing serpent steps calm Cleopatra
Societal riser sanitises sympathy's reaction
To hard-knock have-nots, tutorials taught her
Ignore poor crippled car sleepers in their midst
Image is nine tenths of destiny, maintain it
Dim raised to dazzling, finger emblazoned
Bestows dirtily earned glory on emaciated wrist
Beacon lights monarch morrow, slim limbs svelte
Jokers precluded erect huts on soft sand
Jewels crest strawberry sun-light garland
Dangle gold carats in cards her chronicle dealt
Third of November
Superb Vista
the town awakes to someone yelling, "save yourselves you fools",
with sleepy eyes I wake to see, some wild stampeding mules.
the cowboys with their lassos, face a growing windy gust,
appear as riding puppets, caught inside a maze of dust.
soon the town recovers, as the carnival arrives,
people seem amazed, to see the expert throw his knives.
caught inside the melee, I have searched to find my way,
back again to watch in awe, the dancers at the cabaret.
Matilda leads the chorus line, she smiles in my direction,
her movements hold me spellbound, as she moves in pure perfection.
I picture her and I, back at the ranch in midnight rapture,
If only her attention, I could find a way to capture.
back to the long and arduous road, I have yet to tread and travel,
until the mystery of my life, has finally seen to ripen and unravel.
when it’s been done, when my life will no longer seem so grey,
on Matilda I will call, and hope she sees that I’ll no longer go astray.
we’ll raise some kids, on Blue Ridge mountains far from town,
where no one talks behind our back, where no one there will put us down.
yes she’s a dancer, in the noisy, smoky, riotous cabaret,
but in my heart, she’s just an angel I would love to take away.
take her to another world, where she can spread her wings and fly,
into my arms and hold me tight, and be together ‘till we die.
LUCKY MAY
May, May is welcome
And by these roads, these lanes
Young people come to home
To sing to my sisters.
What pretty they are
With her golden hair
And coloured lassos
And my mother combing them
To disentangle it.
That is their faces
What face so bright¡
Their lips, what loveliness¡
Painted with lipsticks
Where the same Cupid
A Kiss plant.
Their eyes, waht pretty and lovely¡
As star lighting the same Sky.
Their snub noses
(I wish I could to have them¡)
Silver twists are
That none of the jeweller
Knows draw
Only mother Daniela
As their ivory teeth
And their two little bust
Behind their white blouses
As two early lemons
With a dress of virgin
With brads in its shorts
Straight to the point
Axle of dancing and music
Moving their nice legs
And their agile feet.
And Me, now, an injured angel
With all my features as seraph
Imploring to our mother
That she plays a May with me
Dressing me as my sisters
With Rosemary flowers
With legominous flowers
Puting in my hand
A palm of Sun and Moon
As my lovely sisters
Because I want to dress as a little girl
And don’t want to be more
The Little man of the home
In the Lucky May.
A tractor trailer with slats and moos
pulls up at a city slaughterhouse.
The driver pulls the wrong lever
and two thousand pounds
of trotting cattle go for an easy
ramble down the street.
Cop cars follow in no hurry.
Police don’t have lassos and
wouldn't know how to use them.
The cattle stop for a snack in a park
where homeless men and women often
spend the day on benches talking
until the cops decide to round them up.
The homeless people eye the cattle
and the cattle munch and eye the homeless.
This is the last escape for the cattle
but homeless people never know if
tomorrow or the next day could be theirs.
Donal Mahoney
smoke ring from rouged lips rises, lassos the moon
LUCKY MAY
May, May is welcome
And by these roads, these lanes
Young people come to home
To sing to my sisters.
What pretty they are
With her golden hair
And coloured lassos
And my mother combing them
To disentangle it.
That is their faces
What face so bright¡
Their lips, what loveliness¡
Painted with lipsticks
Where the same Cupid
A Kiss plant.
Their eyes, waht pretty and lovely¡
As star lighting the same Sky.
Their snub noses
(I wish I could to have them¡)
Silver twists are
That none of the jeweller
Knows draw
Only mother Daniela
As their ivory teeth
And their two little bust
Behind their white blouses
As two early lemons
With a dress of virgin
With brads in its shorts
Straight to the point
Axle of dancing and music
Moving their nice legs
And their agile feet.
And Me, now, an injured angel
With all my features as seraph
Imploring to our mother
That she plays a May with me
Dressing me as my sisters
With Rosemary flowers
With legominous flowers
Puting in my hand
A palm of Sun and Moon
As my lovely sisters
Because I want to dress as a little girl
And don’t want to be more
The Little man of the home
In the Lucky May.
Woman,
She lassos her tongue around minds
creating space in these harden times
she licks at the wounds
she culls up the glass
a virescent glow that forever will last
She holds off the pain
with a sacred of verse
charged up to the plus
we shall all come immersed
Soapbox, chair, on front porch swings
talking of peace and inequalities
journeys and strength
barefoot she bleeds
not caring for her but others in need
A warrior for rights
a woman of might
hard to the core
but soft as moonlight
Truth emits from her lips
listen up as she pleads
not gone she is here
girl, woman, she, freed
Lazarus
lassos
What?
lasso
lassos
we laugh out
lasso
lesson
capital riot
cattle catch
what a stitch
but we laugh
A rope, right?
lassos
idiot time
from the ridge line, with the mountain breeze
among saguaro and mesquite trees
a lone rider spurs his horse
and from a distance lassos my heart
not riding off into the sunset
he has a thirst he needs to whet
in the valley the oasis waits
drink your fill, drink your fill