Rough And Ready Poems

Caveman

Civilisation's got me down
taking me to the tail of my tether
driving me round the bend
I'm not going to stick it out
to see where it will end
I'll do my best to regress
back to the stone age
cook on fire paint the walls
sit on rocks keep my cool
do what I have to when nature calls
humanity gets my goat
making me vote skins no clothes
leading me to lunacy's throes
I'm not going to see it through
to find where it all goes
I want to be a cave caveman
a tough rough-and-ready caveman
and do what cavemen do
and if you feel the animal urge
I'll make caveman love to you

RHINOCE-ROUS Break

RHINOCE-ROUS Break

Rough And Ready
Horn O' Plenty...
I Let The BlackBird
Near My Eyes
On A Maggot
Cornocopia,
Exquisite Cuisine!!!
-
Roving Thunder
Out Of Place
Under Local Watch To
Start The... Chase!!!

-Gray Squirrel

05-26-2025

Here

Ohio is right here, and the rattling gold of
earth-born corn is here.
All over creation the sky is wide open
and the green and yellow stalks are swaying
right here.

Here the wind-songs are rough and ready,
yet they are as holy as any prayer.
Over there a stand of trees
where the olive frocks of summer
sway and shimmy.

The mud and dirt here is as good as any,
all just as rich as anywhere else
and the grubbing creatures in and upon it
are our wealth

These fetched-up farm fields
are sure-enough an atlas,
the roots of heaven rise below us,
time delves and sprouts here,
the sky descends to till the soil.

This is the land beyond the great river,
the sun nests here, and the stars appear
reflected in up-turned eyes.

We are the unrolled map, we are rural Ohio,
come walk over the world here,
rest on a wayside bench, linger long
or stay - right here.

A Rough and Ready Write

The sun is up and coming in the morning,
The moon is waving me a sad goodbye,
The dawn of our solution,
Is cleaning our pollution,
With optimal collusion as we fry.

I wonder as I wander in the sun bright,
Why creatures of the shadows run and hide,
Perhaps they know the story,
Of nature's morning glory,
Is sleeping when the day is hot outside.

The dew is on the lawn of our contentment,
The butterfly is talking to the bees,
The bog is like a buddy,
Because the hog is muddy,
And all the birds are flocking in the breeze.

Dead Ends

It was near a river named Yuba
and a little town named Rough and Ready.

No. It was not dark.
It was the heart of the day.
There were no streets, dead ends, or otherwise.
There was simply a dirt road that led somewhere,
But 'dead-end to me', as per my onboard brain-computer.

The street lights were not broken.
It was rural, and there were no lights.
No. I was not afraid; just concerned and frustrated.

I was looking for 'shortcuts and time savers' but found neither.
In the middle of 'nowhere', I soon turned around and got back
on the main road. Short-cut hunt?  Quickly abandoned.
Back roads and back fields? Beware and be weary.
Lesson learned? Not all shortcuts are created equally.

Balls and Belles

These rugby-playing girls - 
or women, should I say? -
are so rough and ready,
dashing down that field,
conveying that oval ball
from this end to that,
gritting their teeth.
Oh, what might! Such a sight!

Or do I not prefer
to behold delicate white frocks
on ladies whose fairylike fingertips
hold their tiny needles,
sewing and crocheting,
or simply sitting in silence and smiling
as we fawn on and fancy their fine, fine faces?

Yet would I not receive a slap around my head
for even daring to dawdle on such thoughts?
It is so easy to spend so much time pondering
before I wake in fright:
which sight might I hold tight in my sleeping eyes
moments before I rise - and rise some more?


(19 May 2023)

Low Sun Over Home Waters

Nets are hauled and homeward go the shrimp boats
rolling slow and easy on a sunset path,
their droning engines chugging
over a rippling seafoam.

In the mangrove swamp
an egret sets its white sails and glides upwards
upon hot winds.
The sky opens for its passage
leading it through a cloudless window.

Cypress roots grip the darkening water.
their knees just above a brackish deep.
Mosquitoes dance in the dank
as shadows reach inwards.

Tonight on the bayou, grills will be heated,
pots filled,
while fishing nets are neatly reefed and mended
by rough and ready hands.

Children will skip and play in the barefooted
calm of late evening,
until carried away to their cots
sleepily listening to anhinga and loon
chant their native calls
beneath a far from sleeping lakeside moon.

Dear Katrina

Silence, eyes forward, and stay
Dear Katrina comes this way
She seeks with us to play
But we say
Dear Katrina, stay
Katrina, go away

But she came
She came just the same
With murderous brilliance and perfect aim
Dear Katrina the slayer, we the slain
And yet this is half of what she became
Dear Katrina, don't come to me

Rough and ready she comes full force
I wonder if she felt remorse
She felt nothing, of course
The force
It gets worse and worse and worse still

Until...

Silence, eye forward but stray
What's around me I can't say
Dear Katrina has done with play
Katrina has gone away
There's nothing around anymore anyway
Katrina took everything away
When dear Katrina came that day

Stew With Nothing To Chew

Now, I take you for The Heady
With this Rather Rough and Ready:
Your dared cooking of A Dead Stew,
In it nothing to richly chew
And clearly no Lump of Jew’s Ewe...

A Thing you can’t try with A Jew,
Who’d go ahead to finish you
And worse not bury Wasted You 
Under their Honoring Yew…


I just could you beat black and blue
And watch you as you catch a flu
And never at all raise a hue…

If this was about your means few
I saw not when The Money flew

Firearms For Sale

Firearms for sale
Come and get them now.
Our rifles are fine
Our shotguns are a wow!

So you can’t come by today, Chet?
That’s okay. Buy them on the Internet.
How much easier can it be?
So many sold nice and illegally.

Fire arms for sale.  Oh. You are only ten?
Well, we have to make allowances now and again.
Step right up and show me your cash.
We’ll get you a shotgun in an Iowa flash.

Who’s that young kid standing outside?
Tell him to come in; we won’t make fun or chide.
All he has to have is real USA money.
Just ask my sister, Rough and Ready Rita Gunny.

Old Farm Hat

My old farm hat wears 
its scars on sleeve.
Mended rough and ready
for all to see is heroic deeds
in tussles with cows, bulls and trees.
Its soaked soft in sweat, mellowed with dust.
Patched with bits of other
old hats that have fallen apart, passed it.
Sewn with old leather throngs
through holes punched with a knife.
My old hat is as much a part of me
as my skin, burnt leathery brown
and scarred with age.

Rough and Ready I Am

Fighting my way to the top again
Competing
Evaluating
Editing
Completing
Myself
Against 
The best
Me I have been
or can ever be.
Self improvement.
Rough and ready, waiting and learning.

Fighting My Way To the Top Again

Fighting my way to the top again
Competing
Evaluating
Editing
Completing
Myself
Against 
The best
Me I have been
or can ever be.
Self improvement.
Rough and ready, waiting and learning.

After Easter

Hawkish angels with golden bows
chase away shawnee and wolves.
A sinewy faith built the rough and ready.
We were pleased to claim this land
for Jesus.

Despite the tornadoes,
we continued to raise
Midwest cities
from a leather flogged bible.
We were conceived in closets
where ancestral bones watched.
Buried in leased plots;
stones marked our lack of,
or notable faith in affluence.

Just past Easter, cracks appeared
in a pink painted sky.
An ethereal plaster crumbled.
angelic limbs hung,
caught in a cracked tableau.
Plastic arrows littered marbled floors.
A mall dream, but the dream had legs
unseen, they kept running
on the spot.

Log cabins transported themselves
to Theme Parks.
The Tuesday after Easter
hope clogged casinos,
took root.
God began to fill
storage units
with all His kids 
persnickety dreams.

The Long and Distant Connection

Amongst the rough and ready she waits.
Her ears pitched only for the music that will lift her up,
her eyes searching for the words and images that will inspire,
her heart yearning for that one, the one for which she has no name
 
Amidst the hustle and bustle he searches.
His ears striving to hear the sweet, sweet notes from afar,
his eyes straining to catch but a glimpse of that fair form,
his heart aching for the one, the one that he cannot yet know

Across the tangled wires and webs, they share their hopes.
Their ears buzzing with the songs of infatuation,
their eyes aglow from the embers of attraction,
their hearts wondering still, what is the name of their one?

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