Long Canteens Poems

I'd just checked out of a hotel in the town of Santa Fe 
Went to the store to collect supplies and went on my way
I was heading for the gold rush in the state of...

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“Let ‘em loose,” came his bellowing yell,
“I got 3,000 head I gotta to sell,
Goin' 1,000 miles in weather that's hell,
You're all gonna sweat and all gonna smell”-

The boss’s eyes on ten cowboys did lay,
With disdain...

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Growin' up on the Hoosier farm, Mom fixed very simple chuck.
(We'd never heard of pate de fois gras or crispy Peking duck!)
But never mind such sophisticated and fanciful cuisines.
I'd much prefer a steamin' bowl of...

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A cavalryman's day was guided by a series of bugle calls,
The dulcet tones reverberating within the palisade walls.
Wanting to hurl a boot at the bugler for "Reveille" at dawn,
Instead he stumbled from his cot at...

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Why do you never come to us
Have we no voice
What is the engine of your distrust
It was not our vice
That ran this country to the ground
And we are only energy left around
Since our interest is...

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The old fashioned monsoons
Meant for the flowers and cacti of Arizona California
And New Mexico
Have fled those deserts and dusty reservoirs
To find a new friend instead in Michigan

Up here in the Great Lakes
We’re not used to...

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Vibram lugs 2 inches thick
	for edge work back when
	I was so young
	with mountains to climb

the leather uppers
	with mink oil spread
	in the oven baked
	again and again

Mountains I climbed
	and dusty trails walked
	like friends of old
	they still remain

in...

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What if..

What if; it wasn't a lockdown forenoon 
Mommies whisking to kitchenette 
Daddy's out with newspaper headlines 
Little cubs denned in their late quilt and wishing no schooling today 
Rest world racing themselves to indulge...

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A cowboy named Hank joined wagon trails going west on his horse
He rode the outskirts and back trails of cities in search of a home
He would get a piece of land for growing corn near...

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A PEACEFUL ARMY

Special soldiers went to war
Some being not so young.
Enlisted to do their duty,
But would never fire a gun.

They wore a different uniform,
Which displayed a red shield.
This was the Salvation Army
On the lines of...

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Mr and Mrs private first class stationed 
in Augsburg 15th battalion 
second Calvary division canteens and sea rashins 
were being distributed while we had four more 
court martials. lined outside of the jag office 
after...

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Little brook of childhood,
your water flowed and stayed always cold, 
I traveled far to reach that scented, steep hill
as winter ended with chill.


And listening to the babbling sound,
mist rose from the rocks and ground...
it seemed...

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Once, I was there to check a tall Zaki
And it became reason to meet khaki,
Very clean but most offices tacky:
A cop could turn one into a lackey!
 
I know The Police is for the Nation
But...

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At last, a refuge from the wind and sand
Afraid of the posse that was still on their heels
Now they could loose themselves in the badlands
Wondering why they had ever decided to steal

The horses worn down...

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we gathered our canteens
while coughing up
tar from the hidden gravel
across high terrain

through the mist of Ankara
teal fabric blew in the.breeze
over burnt orange fragments
torn from my temporal

mangled mind of madness
shifting the gates 
of emotional tiredness 
we'd...

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So let's see what the laddies need
To charge the guns and not impede
The rate of fire to cut them down
And body bags to go all 'round.

Let's give then picks and shovels
And blamket rolls to boot,
And...

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