Henry started a punchin’
at the ripe old age of 15
There just ain’t no way of knowin’
all of the things he’s done and seen
All those years are far behind him
since a young cowboy in his prime
Now there is nothing left for him
but to whittle away at time
His days out on the range are gone
can’t quite grasp these new ranchin’ ways
Dudes now riding on ATV’s
out rounding up all of the strays
Henry hangs his head in sorrow
knowing his days are getting few
Just like the stallion turned gelding
his old ways have been castrated too
He neatly won the race hands down.
It was the gelding's break maiden.
He secured the coveted crown.
He neatly won the race hands down.
Triumphant smile, no frown. No frown!
Both horse and jockey wreath-laden!
He neatly won the race hands down.
It was the gelding's break maiden.
Two horses share the acre of pasture--
A proud Arabian, now a gelding,
Who sired seven stately champions, stands
Elegantly while I snap his picture.
The other one, a thirty-two-year-old
With a sagging back, stands waiting to die--
A three times national champion stud
With honors--ribbons and trophies galore
Moving slowly toward the feeding trough
No longer poses for photographers.
written June 14, 2021
Mother rams with baby lambs
for greener grass are hunting.
Mama cows spy mama sows
with piglets softly grunting.
Creature ma’ams are joined by dams
whose baby colts start snorting!
Calves and colts and pigs like dolts
in meadows are cavorting.
March 10, 2021
for Eve Roper's Nursery Rhyme Poetry Contest
(I learned a new word doing this, which kids might enjoy learning:
dams are female horses!)
From Wikipedia:
The word (dam) can also be used for other female equine animals, particularly mules and zebras . . . A horse's female parent is known as its dam. An uncastrated adult male horse is called a stallion and a castrated male is a gelding.
Stephanus Marcus
by
Alfred Laurie Berggren
Stephanus Marcus Book I Spenserian Stanzas
Canto 1
Verse 1
Behold the knight as prancing steed doth seek
to stray from line behind man's comrades brave.
With gentle rein he stays the gait oblique
and makes the dancing gelding know, behave!
Some people wait to see them leave and wave
as riders file toward raised portcullis gate.
Sad families pray for peace in chapel's nave
that Virgin might assuage Duke Morley's hate.
Lord's mind's been troubled by Duke Saint Charles sore of late.
These vain attempts at verse could not be droller.
Your stuff is less inviting than ebola
(and not as catchy). Wordier than Emil Zola,
you haven’t got the steam to be a roller.
I’ve seen more cutting-edge in Pepsi-Cola.
You clearly honed your style in Fuengirola.
About as challenging as last year’s “¡Hola!”
(I’m sure you’re highly thought of in Angola.)
But that aside, I need a favour, mate.
The flood of would-be Spensers is in spate.
I’d like you to review – that is, donate
your time and talent (at the going-rate,
which happens to be zero.) Desecrate
the pricks who prattle, and the prigs who prate.
Denounce, detract. Indulge that gelding hate
that wells in all of us. The cut-off date
is looming, so get hacking. Don’t be late!
~~~~~~~~~~~
In depth of dark eye
I see a soul in there
Stallion or gelding or
The gentlest of mare
They bend to our will
And give of their heart
They lend us their backs
To become of them a part
Horse and it's rider are
Pure emotional poetry
Hearts souls and bodies
Combine as one you see?
~~~~~~~~~~~
A ship in a dip is a duplicate of a massive six ton truck echoing at nine miles an hour in a tunnel. Oh traffic rather stoic today. But trafficking is often great fun for gerbils weighing in at over eighty pounds. £ % £ % waffling. Waffles and lots of cream. Iced curves in mazes. Vast tunnels of elephants then. Played with a big shrew in a big field. How great the ears of a geological gelding reading an encyclopedia in reading glasses. The small antique table. Steady hands are hooves. Freezing is the device of a used tabletop tablet score. Wisdom is neither obtained from a scientific sheet or a statistic paper. Lust lusting laughing leering leaning longitudinal leftovers. And a very smiley face of a bin. Bean beaming braking branching. Hahahaha and now a big wave waving. Hahahaha and a minnow. Xxxx jeopardisation. Xxxx palaeontology z
FEEDING HORSES
She was four years old
Apples in bulging pockets from garden trees
Cold day in autumn
Stroll down to Paddy Sands’s horse pasture
Stop at five-bar gate and lift her up
Call or whistle - they come from a half-kilometre
Black, brown mares, one gelding
Jealous one tries to bite the others
Jostling for position at the gate
All those soft soft noses.....
They will permit stroking
If fed enough handfuls of grass
Grass tastes better from our hands
Than when cropped by them,
(Especially with tiny flowers of blue vetch).
Their big brown eyes close up
So peaceful and trusting
Tempting furry ears just out of reach for her
Turning cold now after half an hour
Spoil them with our apples before we go home
Show her how to hold back her thumb
So it doesn’t get bitten.
Walk home through Sands’s cropped hayfield
To tea and biscuits.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written for Carol Brown's Contest "A Horse Story"
My beautiful Chey,
Warm brown eyes in chestnut face.
Nuzzling my hand,
Gentleness personified.
My lovely Arab gelding.
What’s in a Name
The ranch has many horses
And all have earned a name.
Through color, deed and disposition,
Their moniker will proclaim
Their value to the cowboys
That gave each horse his name.
Pete bears the name of a long lost friend
No longer here to ride.
And offers two ears worthy
For a cowboy to confide.
Legs is taller than the rest
And boy can that steed run.
Lean forward in the saddle
And you could have some fun.
Cottonwood is dirty white
Like the fluffy seeds of the tree.
And a May colt, too!
He went to the mud with me!
Sunny is a bright sorrel gelding
Colored like the sun.
His choppy gait makes saddle sores.
Riding him is never fun!
Jim is black as midnight
Like a character of Mark Twain’s.
They sometimes call him something else
But the meaning is still the same.
S.A. is a red roan stud
With initials for a name.
To write it out would just be wrong.
You can guess his name.
Sixteen years old and in a world of her own
Confined to life lived in a wheelchair
Ever since birth, doctors don’t know what went wrong
But, it was like no one was at home in there
One summer vacation with the other kids in tow
The family visited a Kentucky horse stable
They left her alone in a sunny grass meadow
While off riding with the children who were able
While sitting alone in a catatonic state
Staring out somewhere in space
A gelding that was grazing, Mr. Truly Amazing
Came up and licked her on the face
The family returned to a shocking surprise
Seeing the wheelchair left unoccupied
They looked all around, then couldn’t believe their eyes
When they saw her standing with a horse by her side
She was petting his nose, feeding him an apple
And seemed to be whispering something
They were frozen in their tracks not believing the fact
That their Jenny was no longer a nothing
The mother walked up, in a delicate manner
Not wanting to interrupt this miracle’s course
When Jenny turned to her and in a shallow voice
Whispered, “Look, Mommy, I have a horse”
When I was young I had two horses,
A gelding and a mare.
The gelding's name was "The Cheyenne Star",
With a temperament so fair.
The mare, her name was Candy,
She was anything but sweet.
She looked just like a Clydesdale
Without the hairy feet.
Riding Cheyenne was a joy,
With power steering and power brakes.
He responded easily to each touch
And what a difference that makes.
Candy, on the other hand,
Was like driving a big dump truck.
Hard to get her to move at all
But if she took offense, she'd buck.
They are both long gone now
But I remember both their styles
And they left me with many memories
Which can always bring on smiles.
Doc Holliday truly amazing
Sick to death and two six guns blazing
Though his blasting appeared not to be phasing
The calmness of his gelding equine’s grazing
This be the glory, how the west was won
By house of ill repute, and the six gun
Plenty of action, was never boring
Funeral parlors, were businesses soaring
Stank of many bodies in pine boxes
All human life was generalized poxy
In the west, principle way of the law
Generally how fast every man could draw
These early days were quite chaotic
Wyatt Earp’s moves were a bit methodic
The saloons were filled with poker tables
And many big bosoms of dance hall mabels
Indians drank of white man’s fire waters
Sheep herders were known as only free squatters
The winning of the west, was quite a quest
Reservations put Indians to the test
America has it’s many stories
How our west was won by many glories
So greatly was the west romanticized
We wonder how much was only lies
Well documentation of westward truths
Or documentation of many human spoofs
Maybe fraudulent claims, as was the hog leg’s aim
We accept no blame, but we’ll take the fame
Placed # 15
We could never get a divorce;
we couldn’t decide who gets which horse.
It’s hard enough to lose your spouse,
split the furniture and sell the house.
If I lost my little gelding or mare,
it’d be an agony I could not bear.
Because of the enormity of the loss,
I would surely hit the sauce.
So we will avoid a divorce mistake
and stay together, for the horses’ sake.
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