Long Western Poems
Long Western Poems. Below are the most popular long Western by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Western poems by poem length and keyword.
A Chinese Sonnet
They call me impimpi*,a word fraught with scorn and smoke-
Yet I am the echo of truth inside the brewing storm,
Engaging the law,though no law guards me,
A river trembling by myself and singing my song.
Mount Moorosi keeps my secret vigil high,
While comrades who danced once for freedom's flame,
Are now com tsotsis who trade justice for comfort and coins,
And call betrayal what was birthed before courage,
From Kanaland to Zululand:I love Mzansi enough to bleed,
Love is treachery and betrayal,-love is truth, love is the light,
Still,I am unseen, they can unalive me-I shadow the moon,
My corpse lies,humming Freedom's hymn under the nations' feet.
*Impimpi or mpimpi---A S African term for a snitch or police informer
Mount Moorosi---A town in Lesotho
Kanaland---A munucipality in Western Cape Province in South Africa
Mzantsi---A colloquial term for South Africa
History back
High Noon
West and Southwest
Rough riding Cowboys
Stagecoach arrivals and departures
When the West was won
Rough riding Cowboy conflict
A Sheriff who wouldn’t back off nor quit
Straight out of Dodge City
Town’s people full of pity
Westerners had to be witty
Gun shoot outs
Sunrise to Sunset
Courage to stand
Not giving in to rough riding Cowboys demand
Beware and alert
A town on notice
No one knows what can happen in a western city
Dead or Alive documentation
High Noon call
Go west or get out of town
Standing the ground
Being dead found
Straight out
Dodge City center
Forbidden enter.
I squinted while gazing into the western skies
my attention drawn to banks where willows wept.
Twilight, a melange of magical moments in my eyes,
usually interludes when twilight colors were windswept
just before the juncture where daylight slowly faded
and the reign between sun and moon were traded.
But tonight, "a crimson sky breaks the distant shore."
Appearing low across the horizon as if flames of fire
or a canvas where vermillion paint fills every open pore.
Dusk glows with summer heat as shifts of light transpire.
Silently, the sun sinks, and the transfer of rule unfolds.
Trailing behind are gossamer rays of ambers and golds.
At dusk, a brilliant western panorama
displayed off our seventh floor balcony.
Fluorescent colors, clouds of fuchsia, amber,
yummy yellow golden glazes across the sky.
So spectacularly spanning sentient space
a show of shows of unearthly grace.
Looming large clouds block the final moments
of light, tumultuous turmoils of my
little life reappear to slant the final view.
In contrast to my current mind of hope lost
for the future, the world closes in as I fell
into the despairing darkness of sleep that night
to awake in my dream to a gala porch party
on our balcony, attending was everyone,
my benefactors - Mark Twain, Martin Luther King,
Albert Einstein, Leonard Cohen, Rudyard Kipling,
Robert Frost, Maya Angelou and Dorothy Parker.
The "usuals" who would, could draw me close
but I'd have none of it, my mood morose.
Sullen, I waded disconsolate through the crowd
to the rail, reached in the basket I'd kept
for the long hemp escape rope, supple as a snake,
knotted it, put the loop around my neck
heart pounding, they gasped, chatter turned to fear.
Then a white dove flew under our canopy
and sat on Kipling's shoulder peacefully posing.
Clumsily confused, I climbed atop the railing
turned to look at the party - troubled, bereft,
speechless, said nothing, then jumped.
Oh the rushed flying feeling enthralling!
Soaring in the wind, all the while falling -
instantly, I was sorry it would all stop.
The dove descending on me caught my gaze
an iconic spiritual symbol that allured.
Through the dove's eyes I saw the party leaning,
a taut rope, a body swinging below.
Startled from dour slumber, back in my bed;
no breath, panting, panicked, tears trickling,
my wife up to hug me, save me from myself.
Shaken, I knew just exactly what to do
quickly to the balcony, opened the rope basket
to find all in place, then I noticed my hands,
palms bleeding, rope burned and raw,
pinned to my nightshirt was a piece of paper,
on it was this poem that I'd never written.
Bleary beyond belief, a surge force welled up,
a dove flies into the dawn sky bursting new light -
the otherness released finally from within.
I felt new found freedom from dream depths -
reborn, awake with renewed hope,
that memorable morning on the seventh floor.
From The Ashes of The War, 1
The smoke has cleared, but the silence betrays,
A quieter warfare that numbers the days.
Where brothers who shared both the mortar and name,
Now look at each other through prisms of shame.
They tell us the root of our lineage is wrong,
That Bini, not Igbo, is where we belong.
They swallow the history the victors have spun,
Denying the mother to flatter the son.
If bent on abandoning your Igbo identity, oh Ikwerre,
Would you also abandon your half-brothers in Amaigbo and Nkwere?
Where Amaigbo’s son, ruled the Niger Delta, as King Jaja of Opobo,
A revered king and a free son of Igbo, never a servant or an odibo.
The vowels are altered, the heritage torn,
To bury the cradle where identity was born.
Bini was Iduu, they never claimed Akalaka as a son,
And Eze Chima, not, REze Chima, never a Bini born.
Behold how the letters are weaponized now,
An "R" stamped brutally on a community’s brow.
A tactical grammar where ancestry hides
From Umukurushi to Rumukurushi, it slides,
What an “R” wonder in not identifying as Igbo
Umuola to Rumuola and Umuokoro to Rumuokoro,
Umuekpe to Rumuekpe and Umuigbo to Rumuigbo,
The tags of "Niger Delta" replace what used to be true,
South South, a desperate shield from the malice they knew.
When oil residues soiled the creeks they knew,
And oil wells shared among Western and Northern emirs,
Excluding the Igbo Chiefs and the South-South Chiefs, too.
They cannot erase the Igbo language all the same,
Though they try, by adopting new regional names.
Yet their chieftaincy titles remain of Igbo ancestry,
To stay authentic and linked to the history, authority and ancestry.
Oh, weep for the scholars, the local elites,
Who traded the truth for the praise of the streets!
The intellectuals, blinded by status and gain,
Who justified treason and sanitized pain.
They authored the distance, they drafted the wall,
And cheered as they watched their own brotherhood fall.
They organized and seized Igbo properties labelled "abandoned,"
Sharing those homes with reckless abandon) ed
Even Saro-Wiwa’s last address belonged to the Ojukwu dynasty.
Yet the soil remembers what politics tries to erase,
The blood in the marrow, the lines on the face.
Though the names may be rewritten and the history denied,
The truth of the cradle still echoes inside.
An Old Cowboy
An old cowboy left yesterday.
Once drove herds over open range.
Many hardships along the way,
But a life he would never change.
Heard sound of cattle full stampede.
Rode days in slush up to his knees.
Tall in the saddle on his steed.
Broke, but had all a cowboy needs.
Up before dawn most of his days.
Often playing an old guitar,
Singing tunes about dusty trails,
And lost loves that were torn apart.
Old age and time at long last struck.
Glory gone like western ghost town.
Life’s work over and spent last buck,
A cowboy king without a crown.
Withdrew in deep grief and doubt,
His way of life had gone away.
Last words, “head ‘em up; move ‘em out”,
Old cowboy died yesterday
The man in black alit from the stagecoach that hot and sultry day.
With his hat he brushed dust from his suit as he surveyed old Santa Fe.
He pulled his hat down over his eyes as he strode to the nearby saloon.
Who was this mysterious stranger? A gambler or a business tycoon?
There was a prominent bulge under his coat where a pistol might be.
He carried a fine leather valise, its contents provoking curiosity!
He was clad in the finest cloth and was built like an old rugged oak,
Wore white linen, fine leather boots, topped off with a stylish cloak!
He sat down with a sigh, took off his hat and ordered a bottle of rye.
He took not a nip but said, "Fellows, step up! A drink for you I'll buy!"
That was unusual - free booze - they scarcely knew what to think!
But the town rabble and ne'er-do-wells flew to his table for a drink!
In the meantime, the sheriff received word about this new man in town.
He rushed to the saloon with hands on his rods to calm things down!
"What's yer business here, pilgrim? I don't want any trouble!
If you're here to gamble or pimp, you kin leave town on the double!"
"Calm down, mister sheriff! I aim to help you in maintaining the peace!
To deal with those who flaunt the law and help crime to decrease!
May I introduce myself, sir. I'm the Reverend Mister Percival Brown,
And I aim to settle here and build a Presbyterian church in your town!"
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
`
As we sit looking out over
weary western skies,
breathing in the solitude
of twilight’s scented breeze,
remembering the passing day
and dreaming of spring flowers
waiting just around the bend
I see the evening’s first star
appear beyond the barren maples
above a drowsy horizon,
an opal on a deep violet canvas,
a single heartbeat pulsating
in the late winter heavens,
and I make a silent wish
Chilly winds waft through the fields,
their quiet rush flowing
in tempo with this celestial heartbeat,
when you take my face in your
silken hands and kiss me,
sweeter than rose petal pudding,
taking my breath completely away
Then resting your head
on my shoulder you sigh telling me
I am everything you have ever wished for
and you will love me forever,
when I feel three heartbeats forming as one
and glancing up at that star once more
I whisper, “thank you”
3/20/20
For A Star’s Heartbeat poetry contest
Sponsored by Chantelle Anne Cooke
A people without a god
I ask you to serve our goddess,
to pay the dues of our kinds,
leaving those western men you call priests and imams at the expense of our shrine masters
and their fabulous incantations,
pouring wine at our ancestral shrines,
perhaps dance the formidable tunes of our “Nfehveh;”
But you rather preferred the Yahweh and Allah of our western compatriots, soaring with
them … just feeling happy,
getting in motion with their beloveds rhythmic melodies,
placing all evil curses on me and calling me an animist;
Forgetting the good old past of our ancestors that have sunk into this stock of past events,
terming our tradition an enemy of progress
and changing the dancing path of our marvelous “samba;”
Besides,
time may have change
but the past is still part and parcel of life
and it hurts more when you grow wild ignoring me,
giving me impressions that I need redemption;
To be continued...
I'm Just a Lonely Cowboy
I Ride the Range at Night
The Thoughts I Have of You
Could Set a Herd to Fright
You Took All of My Money
It Wasn't Very Fair
I Sure Did Love Ya, Honey
With Your Golden Yellow Hair
Your Eyes Were Blue and Innocent
Your Lily White Hands So Small
I Thought I Was a Big Man
At Least Nine and a Half Feet Tall
Well, You Took Me down a Peg or Two
Just the Other Night
When I Caught You with 'Old Cody
And We Had a Hell of a Fight
He Came out the Winner
Of Course I Knew He Would
It Didn't Change a Thing
You Just Weren't Any Good
You're a User and Abuser
Of Every Kind of Man
I Just Wish I'd Known it
I'd Have Never Touched Your Hand
So I'll Count Myself Real Lucky
To Be Away from You
You Got Me and I Learned
Good Women Are Very Few
I'm Just a Lonely Cowboy
And I Ride the Range at Night
But I'm Glad That I Found out
Some Women Aren't Worth the Fight
And If I Find a Woman
That Will Treat Me Fair and Right
I'll Ride That Lonesome Range
And Have Good Thoughts of Her All Night
Connie Moore
August 11, 1992