Long Ranch Poems
Long Ranch Poems. Below are the most popular long Ranch by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Ranch poems by poem length and keyword.
‘Twas way back in them days
when the ranch owner’s ways
was just about the only law there was around
Rancher’s money was king
and gun violence reigned
till marshal Ben Miller made his way into town
Well that town was real rough
till Ben said ‘twas enough
that’s when he used his guns to bring law to the street
But there's always that one
thinks he's fast with his gun
would soon find himself face down covered with a sheet
For the next twenty years
Ben had kept the streets clear
of any no-gooders that might drift into town
Then folks started to say
Ben was showing some gray
maybe his old age had started to slow him down
The councilmen all met
said it is with regret
that we tell you it's time for you to settle down
They baked him a nice cake
a few speeches they'd make
and introduced him to the new marshal in town
Town folk gathered and cheered
told him how twenty years
was a long time to stay on this side of the grave
Ben took a look around
rode his horse outta town
with his new gold watch and the few dollars he'd saved
That is often the way
a cowboy's life got played
long ago when the country was still just a pup
When a trusted hired hand
gave his life for the brand
honest and loyal was the way he was raised up
If you think this is sad
or Ben's life turned out bad
well then this might be a little good news for you
Was the very next week
Men lay dead in the street
they had robbed the bank and stole the mayor's horse too
When they tried to get Ben
to come marshal again
sure don't take no book smarts to know how he replied
Well, he asked widow Jones
if she'd like to go along
and off to the wide open Montana they'd ride
Was a day in March when
Jasmine married old Ben
Though they had only been courtin' about a year
Said they was gonna go
where the tall grasses grow
gonna try their hand raisin a few cows and steers
Well they made it alright
through frozen winter nights
mostly cause they hadn't built up much of a herd
When the next spring turned mild
it brought both calves and child
after that first year their ranchin' blood had been stirred
It’s been thirty years since
granpap left Defiance
now I stop alongside his grave near' every day
I watch over his spread
more than five thousand head
as they grow fat right here on the Rockin’ Bar J
III.
It was near midnight when they came again,
four warriors armed all with flaming brands,
Myron bolted up from a fitful sleep,
and poured out bullets as the horses ran.
He managed to shoot one off of his horse,
but the trio screamed and charged in once more,
Harold said”They’re fools to keep charging in!”
But Myron though hard, and wasn’t so sure.
He called for all to cease firing
and listened close as if searching for proof,
then he heard soft thumps coming from above,
one of them had gotten up on the roof!
The charging men had been a distraction,
and Myron grabbed the shot-gun in a hurry,
fearing that they would set the roof aflame,
he opened fire with a hot fury.
A hole was blasted where he shot the brave,
the dead man rolled off and struck hard on the ground,
the charging warriors roared in anger,
so Harold shot another one of them down.
The survivors fled back towards their camp,
but no withdrawal did the Sioux men beat,
instead they took turns sniping at their foes,
to deny Myron and his family sleep.
Come Morning Myron looked out and saw perched high
sixteen warriors atop their steads,
with lances and rifles and tomahawks
preparing for the morning’s bloody deeds.
But what chilled Myron’s soul more than anything
was the small tree trunk that two riders held
by the branches, to batter down the door,
and visit upon them a living hell.
The others let loose a barrage of shots,
to try and suppress Myron waiting within,
he fired endlessly took down two more,
then leapt back as the riders bore down on him.
The battering tree smashed right through the door,
a slew of war-cries went up, loud and piercing
the shot-gun blasted, two more warriors fell,
the noise left all their heads and ears ringing.
Harold went down from a shot to the chest,
the doorway was a commotions of words,
but standing there clutching his aching head
was the muscled form of Diving Bird.
Myron leapt forwards and drew his pistol,
then jammed it straight into Diving Bird’s ear,
Roared,”If you value your War-chief’s life,
you will all stop, and ride straight out of here!”
The Indians outside froze when they saw them,
none understood the words that he did say
except for an old man, missing an eye,
who spurred forwards to attempt a parlay...
CONCLUDES IN PART IV.
I saw a talk-show interview
of a new author, all the rage,
she had sold two million copies,
her book is everywhere these days.
It was tailor-made for women,
a downcast wife looking for love,
verbally abusive husband,
trapped in a situation tough.
Until one day she went out west,
going on vacation alone,
her husband said that he had work,
brushed her off, she was on her own.
She had gone out to a dude ranch,
she had loved horses as a kid,
where she met the ranch’s wrangler,
a mountain man cowboy named Sid.
He was what her husband was not,
Sid was caring, confident, cool,
he’d help he mouth, his touch would linger,
and she’d smile back like a fool.
They’d find themselves talking for hours,
finding any excuse to touch,
then one day in a mountain meadow
they spread a blanket and made love.
It was all that she lacked at home,
passionate, intense, and sincere,
she wished that she could never leave,
but she had a life, a career….
And her cowboy love made peanuts,
not enough for two to survive,
nesides, this was infatuation,
that’s what she told herself inside.
But at home she couldn’t be happy,
soon enough she longer for escape,
so once a year, for a whole week,
to her cowboy she’d make her way.
And this continued for eight years,
until she saw on their website,
that her man died in a car crash,
she hid her tears for that whole night.
Yet he had left a parting gift,
for she was sick in the mornings,
this was the author’s tragic tale,
it has countless fans adoring.
To seal the deal she did proclaim
that it was based on her own life,
she’d changed names, but much was quite real,
you sold more with tales of real strife.
My own wife was enrapt by it,
which caused me some little alarm,
but she just laughed and dismissed it
when I said such tales could do harm.
But something just didn’t sit right,
on the whole thing something seemed off,
I know truth is stranger than fiction,
but something kept making me scoff.
Real life just doesn’t work this way,
romance can never be that clear,
then throw in infidelity?
This tale was not what it appeared.
So in free time I went online,
digging into the author’s past,
and saw that I was not the first
to put this new writer on blast...
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
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
Ethel Hurst
1889 – 1918
I saw the town rise up
Like a single blade of grass after a spring rain.
I played a multitude of hop-scotch games
With my best friend Hannah on Penn Street.
And sipped a hundred ice cream sodas in the Mercantile at sunset.
My mother took me to Jacob’s Grocery every Monday
And it was I who picked the plump oranges
From the big rickety crate.
On Saturdays we worked the fields at Strong’s Ranch,
Harvesting the pampas in the walnut fields.
And on Halloween I was the girl in the moon-face costume for five straight years.
When Christmas brought its luminous lights to the town,
Mother dressed me in red with a bell on my bonnet.
And father sang the carols with a guitar and a tambourine.
I graduated from the big high school in 1907
And in celebration,
Rode my bicycle to Bassett
Still in my starched graduation petticoats.
Jesse Forbes,
He being five years younger than I,
Was the love of my brief stay on this earth.
But when he ventured to steal a kiss that day in Black Canyon,
I used my calloused hand to convey my stern disagreement.
But what wild regrets I’ve entertained since Jesse drowned that day.
In the wild currents by Pio Pico’s crumbling Adobe,
His body bobbing like a sea bird
In the punishing plume of that old deep river.
Beyond the muddy banks and the wild flowers,
Jesse Forbes left this life with a surprised frozen grin.
Why Jesse? Why?
You never knew the truth, my love.
You never really understood what I meant
When I said nothing.
I said No to you when I said nothing that day in Black Canyon,
But I really meant Yes.
The influenza incinerated my heart and soul
With a 106 temperature in the winter of 1918.
Twenty nine years I dare say
Is nothing in terms of eternal life!
I had so much more to do!
I had so much more to dream about!
I walked and talked on the streets of my town,
And on the funeral-dark avenues of my innocent days.
And I planned and I schemed
And all for nothing!.
Indeed, I felt the pulse of fleeting time
And the never-ending,
Ever-turning circle of endless days.
But now I rest here in Clark Cemetery… a virgin corpse
Flirting shamelessly with the bow-tie worms,
Still wild with regrets.
And forever haunted in reverse
By the same recurring memory
Of Jesse Forbes holding a rose.
Under the old oak tree in Black Canyon..
The work was hard out on the ranch, the days were hot an' dry,
An' fancy things you find in town had caught ol' Jim Bob's eye.
When evenin' came he'd sit the fence an' crave to see the sights,
To drive big cars to all the bars an' toast the city nights.
He had a gal he courted some, her name was Betty Lou.
She'd lived a spell in Angelo, had been to Lubbock, too.
Her face was fine, with freckled cheeks, her hair was done in style;
An' all her clothes had fancy brands that musta cost a pile.
Now, Betty Lou had set her sights to put her brand on Jim,
But he had things he had to do an' marriage weren't for him.
The world was callin'-out his name, he had some things to learn,
Some places that he had to see, 'some candles left to burn'.
Well, came a time, an' like you thought, he wandered off the range,
But ended up in Boston-town; now boys, that was a change.
He found a bar that looked real clean an' sauntered in the door;
He'as proud to be of Texas stock an' sallied to the fore.
A fancy feller slithered-up an' asked Jim to his place,
But when he put his hand on Jim's, he punched him in the face.
I guess that feller didn't know for what ol' Jim was known,
An' bein' green to city life, he'as best just left alone.
Right after Jim had took his shot that dude got mighty riled;
He punched Jim once an' kicked him twice, an' left him right defiled.
Jim left his mark, I guess you'd say, that feller's bloody clothes;
Cause when that feller swung his fist, Jim hit it with his nose!.
He'd never seen them fancy dudes, who act like girls an' such;
From what he knew, which wadn't squat, he didn't like 'em much.
He heard they'as sissies, frail an' weak, sashayin' as they walked.
They gossiped like some women-folk, an' giggled when they talked.
Well, when it all was said an' done, he helped Jim to his feet,
An' dusted off his shirt a mite, then smiled at him real sweet.
He told Jim 'bout a couple things he liked to do with males;
Now, one was such I won't repeat, but one was kickin' tails.
Well, boys I guess there's lessons here: be careful where you roam;
Don't wander off to Boston-town, if Texas is your home;
But if you do, stear clear of bars, an' this I would include;
Don't ever underestimate an' rile a fancy dude.
A farmer's son was once tending to his mother's hens,
Collecting their eggs to sell,
At his family's road-side market stand when,
He found a purple egg with a rotten smell.
The boy looked around at all the female foul,
Perhaps a mutant hen had delivered this egg,
Although it wasn't gold, perhaps the egg could wow,
Some wealthy hobbyist who would for the egg beg.
The peculiar egg was polk-a-dotted with greenish spots,
And reeked like a port-a-lu,
But for some reason that the boy knew not,
He decided to make it into a stew.
For the egg was massive, maybe one foot tall,
And in width the same as its height,
It looked like a putrid soccer ball,
Played with maybe by witches in the night.
So the boy grabbed from a cupboard a large pot,
And lit a flame beneath the oven's coils,
And poured in some water when he thought,
"Should this egg be poached or hard boiled?"
He decided instead to make an egg-drop soup,
With this heinous egg that was sitting in heated water,
For the boy was tired of farming and wanted this goop,
To prove that magic was real as it was in Harry Potter.
He stirred the rotten concoction with a branch,
Of hazel for added dramatic effect,
Added some salt and vinegar from inside the raised-ranch,
Where his family had been obliviosely kept.
The vinegar dissolved the flourescent shell,
Whose hues of purple and green had swirled,
Into a mauve-colored vomit solvent from hell,
And steamed an odor which made his hair curl.
Giggling to himself, he ignored the stench,
As he fancied himself a warlock,
And once it was done he pulled up a bench,
To sit as he added in some chicken stock.
After a few tireless minutes the boy decided it was done,
So he grabbed a bowl and a silver spoon,
Ladled some up and ate it with a cheeseburger bun,
Which he dipped into the disgusting soup.
The boy soon realized that the egg was not magic,
As his breath stopped and skin turned red,
For the goopy soup he had made led to the tragic,
End of this boy who dropped immediately dead.
Had he realized that magic was the power to make plants grow,
And the strength to care for your cows and chickens,
He certainly would have seen the egg and known,
That whatever ate it would surely be sickened.
When I saw the Grim Reaper
pull out his peeper and pee on the patio,
I yelled, "Hey Jack!
Can't you use the facilities out back?
That's what normal people do, you know.
I always said I wasn't afraid of death,
till one night, Death tried to rob me of my breath.
And as I was gasping for air,
he said with a cold, penetrating stare,
"Next time they ask if you're afraid of death,
just say 'Yesth.'"
I came to this hospice to die.
I see Mister Death standing by.
He's consulting a note.
I thought he did everything by rote.
What’s with that quizzical look in his eye?
When Mister Death had me firmly in his grip,
I pleaded, "Sir, can we please make this a round trip?"
He said, "I'm sorry to say,
this trip is only one way.
But we do serve drinks, and chicken wings,
with a delectable ranch dip."
When it got to be close to seven,
we were still a half-light year away from heaven.
I said, "Mister death, one question more.
When will we get to heaven's door?"
"Oh, not till tomorrow morning, Sir,
about a quarter past eleven.
When I reach the pearly gates with the grim reaper as my guide,
I hope the question of whether I get heaven or hell is only for Jesus to decide.
Because if Peter is allowed his opinion, and then that apostle Paul,
I don't think I stand much of a chance at all.
When we got to heaven, Saint Peter said,
“Hurry in, quick, so I can shut the door ~
you were being closely followed by the Babylonian whore.
And if she were to get in,
God only knows what trouble I'd be in.
Heaven would never again be the same as before.”
To folks staring at a screen in a brightly lit room,
I said, "I have arrived in heaven, right, I presume?"
"Yes, yes," they replied, my soon-to-be heavenly friends.
“But until this gosh darn epidemic ends,
there's no other way to do heaven but by Zoom.”
Heaven is not at all what I expected.
It’s hell to be stuck in a place with the boring elected.
They do nothing but this goody-goody-two-shoe stuff!
Believe me, after half an eon, I’ve had just about enough.
Oh, where’s the escape button? I wanna be ejected.
The end
The Long Trail © by Trisha Sugarek
The Circle Heart brand on the wet rump rippled
as the horse shivered with exhaustion
the sun lost its battle with night and
dropped behind the far peak
Chaparejos, worn thin and soft fit his legs
like they had grown there
Dusty spurs jangled as he trotted into the sleepy town
A saddle that had seen a thousand miles creaked
and complained as he stepped down
the crown of his hat was stained with sweat
from the hard ride
Reins dangled in the dirt
The horse hung his head, relieved to not
be moving anymore
A drink or two to wash the Santa Fe Trail dust
from the cowboy’s throat he stepped up onto the boardwalk,
turned and gazed at the town
and the mountains beyond
the color of old blood as the sun lost its glory
He pulled a cigarillo out, and with one smooth
movement wiped a match on his pants, the tiny
flame igniting
He puffed and blew smoke into the night air
watched the town close up for the night
Across the street a cur scurried around a corner
a merchant keyed his shop closed and
lit the gas lantern beside his door
The work had been good at the Circle Heart ranch, the grub even better
But the trail was his siren, always calling him, luring him over the next hill, down the next wash,
up the next canyon
sleeping next to a small camp fire,
staring at a billion stars
wondering if someone, something out there
was staring back
He wanted to settle but he hadn’t found
the right place
the right woman
the right time
Flicking the smoke into the street, he turned
and entered the saloon,
honky-tonk piano music played
The doors behind him whispered back and forth
The patrons saw another dusty, tired cowpoke, looking
for a few hours of pleasure
some music, some whiskey, and if he could afford it
the soft arms of a woman
The cowboy saw weak town folk,
forever saddled to their days
the bit in their mouths dictating their lives
wary of any stranger, their gaze sidling away
Set ‘em up and keep ‘em comin’, the cowboy barked
Show me your coin, the barkeep growled
His days were numbered
the boys from the Circle Heart ranch would find
him and the horse
They would take their horse and probably string
him up to the nearest tree
When the well-rested rooster woke up at noon, he found himself in the lap
of a gorgeous boy and he was telling his mom with urgency,
"I want this rooster, he can keep the lonely and moody parrot company!"
And staring at him," It's a rooster, not a pet!" she exclaimed.
Mothers always try to please their kids, and sometimes they really spoil them,
not according to their customs and beliefs, controversially fathers are stricter than them;
"I'll take care of him and soon he'll be living in our ranch home" he promised...
and continuing,"From now on, his name will be Harbor: the lovely place where I found him!"
The gentle boy kept his promise and Harbor became part of the family,
and the talkative parrot taught him to say the exact words he said;
and months went by, but nobody knew that he could speak so humanly,
and how did they find out that Harbor was smarter than an ordinary bird?
They overheard him in a challenging conversation about finding a perfect mate,
in the shortest time and the shrewd parrot thought he surely would have been the winner,
but to his surprise, Harbor used his accumulated wisdom and searched the nearby farm,
where chicks were bred and then put in perforated carboard crates on a freighter.
Harbor looked around and didn't really like any of the chicks he saw,
and was he about to give up on his search? Suddenly not! He trotted past the noisy farm,
and to his bewilderment, he spotted a young chicken on the grass below...
and gallantly approached her, and with a chat started a romantic affair by keeping her warm.
Harbor and the young chick clicked and they quickly were talking about marriage,
lots of baby chicks to feed: the ultimate dream of two domesticated birds;
at first, the upset boy wasn't too happy about their agreement, and exploded in rage,
but realizing what was best for Harbor, he finally gave him his blessings.
On the same farm the newly-wed live, and have big plans for a large family;
one more thing, if curious folks decide to visit them anytime soon, they need a reservation.
They will show them around with their fowl hospitality, but rule out temptation;
none of them will end up on their plates for the next Holidays or any other special festivity!