Long Longhorns Poems

I'm on my way to a different day 
A day of long ago. 
Where the buffalo roam 
And the long horns groan 
As down the trail they go. 

There isn't much time for them to...

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It was after chores were done near the end of day.
In the fading light, the cowpoke rode away.
The ranch was far away as his horse rode up the hill.
A gust of strong wind came from...

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The ol' saddle warn't much to look at but it was all Buck could afford.
He paid Billy five bucks fer it when Billy died and loped to his eternal reward!
The saddle fit his hoss Dan...

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Clayton King was a cattle baron
With ranges like far flowin’ seas,
And thousands of Texas longhorns
Roilin’ around like swarms of bees.

He built a huge cedar ranch house
With everything he needed there,
And oversaw his vast empire
Right from...

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Two weeks we'd been droving; and the end was now in sight
In the distance was Dodge City, we'd be there before night
I was on the trail with other cowboys from the Double Circle Ranch
And we...

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A cowpokes life is a rough one and when he draws his monthly pay,
He mounts his hoss and gallops to town to visit the local cabaret.
He scrubs the manure from his boots and dons a...

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Hank had rode the range a-punchin' cattle fer nigh on fifty years,
Ridin' through Texas northers and brandin' cantankerous steers.
He'd herded ornery longhorns along the Chisolm Trail to Abilene.
He'd signed on with the Triple D Ranch...

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Hides, hooves and horns.
A windin’, bawlin’ column
Snakes its way along the trail,
Flowing ever northward,
To keep a rendezvous,
With westward reachin’, black steel rails.
             ...

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I'd been in Heaven quite awhile
Victim of a Spring flood
When Curly showed up at The Gates -
He's always been my bud

I said, ”Curly,why are you here?
You’re way too young to be!”
He said,”I really do not...

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From the Black Hills to the prairies,
he sighed as his eyes turned hard & dark
That was the path of the Buffalo,
His finger traced a wide & sweeping arc
You could tell he longed to be out...

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You can hear coyotes come a calling
And the cattle restless now and bawling
As we dodge the storm that sends us sprawling
On that range we’ll see no more.

The birds like omens now are all singing
And our...

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Calamities…
assaulted by the Memorial Day tsunami
drowned victims & floating cars--
appendix detonates during the Season of Hell
haplessly hospitalized in the UT-Austin medical zoo

Delusion of progress…
recovering in the mobile home 
plodding through texts of 
postmodern pointlessness--
overcome with...

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Try and Stop Em
Harold Roy Miller

The longhorns were getting hard to hold
as the thunderstorm came in fast and cold.
The dark black clouds were starting to hover
as the fretful steers made a sweep for cover.

The herd...

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The rangy longhorns were rounded up and tended to.
Over the Colorado plains a fearsome blizzard blew!
'Twas Christmas Day!  The cowpokes paid no mind to the storm,
As they huddled 'round the potbellied stove all snug...

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When there was such a thing as a cowboy
And the open range was still wild and free—
When there was such a thing as the Old West—
A man could be what he wanted to be.

When the...

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I'll tell you a tale when Texas was young
When women were scarce and horse thieves were hung.
His name was Jake and he was six feet four -
Prob'ly weighed three hundred or maybe more.
Came down from...

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No one knows where the longhorn goes,
When his breed is scattered and few—
He once was king of the cattle ring,
But his time in this world is through. 

We all must go where longhorns go,
When the...

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"Son", says I, "now that you are grown,
Take some advice from this old man.
A cowboy's life , as it's well known,
Is Hell on earth in blowin' sand."

"Survival seems high on the list
Of the things we...

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Rodeo Roy was a buckaroo boy,
A buckaroo boy was he—
Bulls and horses determined his courses—
They say he was only three!

Rodeo Roy never found his true joy,
Until he was all of ten—
He learned to chaw just...

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He came knock knockin' on heaven's door,
Hat in his hand and boots on the floor.
St. Pete said,"Son, what you doin' here?
You ain't scheduled for many a year."
The cowboy said,"Well, I thought that, too -
But longhorns...

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Missin’ Pieces

I learnt a lot just getting’ here
Been many a year passed
Most of my smarts come from the trail
What you don’t know, just ast.

Ropin’ longhorns can be scary
It’s good to feel some fear.
You’ll lose a...

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Oh, the cattle herd’s down
But not the price in the store,
You can’t make a livin’—
I ain’t ranchin’ no more.

I ‘member my granddad
In those ranch days of yore,
How he just seemed to scrape by—
I ain’t ranchin’...

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We used to have a larger group
Ten thousand head at best
Once we had the largest herd
Of Longhorn in the west

But, times got tough, we sold a few
There was the drought back in '11
I didn't know...

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I need to go wild where the whiskey flows,
And where the cards make a shufflin' flutter.
I will go wherever the young blonde goes,
And hope her blue eyes don't make me stutter.

Been ridin' this trail for...

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Chicago's been dubbed the windy town,
but Great Falls has that tag nailed down.
If you're facing Montana's fierce wind,
you're moving where you didn't intend.

Prairie grass rolls like ocean waves,
tumbleweed mounds resemble graves.
Aspen leaves' fluttery swirls abound,
scarcely...

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