Best Rigs Poems

BROTHER JACK

Just and passionate 
A true outdoorsman year around
Cannot change his iron will—it’s like a force of nature
Kinsmen treasure his stalwart company and joy of cooking

Big man with grace in strength
Roars the engine when he waits too long
Only reads in the dead of night
Takes kids...

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If you'd have lived and worked on Juno Ranch, you’d have come away better for it. It 
may not have seemed like it at the time but Pancho (Uncle Frank) would put it to you, an’ it 
was for you to decide to do it,...

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Author's Note: Recite the following using the rhythm and melody of "Home, home on the range where the deer and the antelope play." The first verse can be used as the refrain:

His income tax structure is strange
Donald will the needy shortchange
The overly rich 
Claim their...

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Against The Ashes of The Fire

Thine eyes wrapped in chestnut leaves, brittle bark, red berries, and skeletal branches

Thy skies once azure with an aura of clouds drifting lazily over fall-kissed 

Grass. The tears you weep you do so in mist, while your white pumpkin skin

Begins...

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Where the earth, 
either scorched or drowned,
meets the fire of war 
or the floods of indifference,
where the sky,
once pristine, now flight-scarred,
meets the trawlers and the oil rigs
on the dying sea,
and the righteousness
that you wore as an amulet
became a millstone
that you could not bear.
Where the industrial...

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We need to send a message for Washington to hear
We need to make a statement and make it loud and clear
Leave rigs double parked in every town
Come on truckers. Shut it down
Block the highways. Set your course.
Show our politicians a united force
Politicians! While you're kissing...

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To build these giants
It took many men
Various trades
Manufacturing gems
 
Scaffolders, Platers
Drawing room to sea
But one trade
Makes it happen for me
 
Whatever they made 
No matter what they joined
My choice is not made
On the flick of a coin
 
These are the guys
That make metals talk
Settle their...

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The Whittlers

The stately county courthouse was their usual meeting place,
a columned Greek Revival, and a lovely public space.
They sat upon their benches under lofty pecan trees,
wood shavings on their ankles and some cedar twixt their knees.

Those old boys were called the whittlers, but that was...

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Why do I do it, It’s hard to explain
This obsession that’s driving me slowly insane
The dark hours seem endless, the boredom intense
You would think at my age I’d have more common sense

The weather’s ‘Brass Monkey’ bitter and bleak
With many blank sessions for many a week
In...

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GTF

Wizened skin like burnished leather
Thin, grey and long, disheveled hair
Clear, sharp blue eyes that seem to stare
Through sun scorched face, alert, aware

A ‘lived-In’ face that’s so expressive
Tales he tells read like a missive
His arms and hands he flails about
To all he jests, he seems to...

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Everything was in the right place; the shoes, books, furniture, utensils, remote control…. His house always smelled of fresh air, although it was hundreds of miles away from the ocean.

“Your house smells like a beach-house!” his friends told him.

He knew his house was far from...

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I am a truck driver,
A profession by choice.
Behind the wheel,
That's my voice.
Left the factory,
Not hidden by walls.
Run my loads wherever they call.
Dispatchers think,
We are some kind of superman,
When in reality,
We just do what we can.
We're looked down on,
Called all kinds of names.
Not recognized as humans,
Like...

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I've lived life hard, I've lived life full,

I wasn't the type that stood around and shot the bull.

Every lesson I learned, I learned complete,

Life was good but it wasn't always sweet.




Rigging up drilling rigs and tearing them down,

Moving from county to county and from town...

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I write about the things I know
Sometimes it’s places that I’ve been
Or, maybe places I would go 
If I’d find time to now and then.

But mostly I write what I see.
A description lives inside of me
That forms a picture, but in words,
To reproduce in simple...

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You marketing types love us.
Blue all over, fear of nothing a man can throw,
Quick to bow down when the boss come by...
not the one paying me...., 
but the one who rules my roost. 

Day breaks looks nice,
especially because the roads aren't covered and filled with...

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