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Cowboy Poetry
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This is the place the ’punchers come
when it is time to drink their pay,
ride in from the hilly rangelands
to forget cattle for a day.
Norma in the kitchen will cook
beef and spuds for this roving horde,
her husband Mick will greet them all
when they bust through the bat-wing doors.
He’s owned this place sine eighty-two,
for ten years he had saved his gold,
he first came here from Ireland,
where taxmen seized his home of old.
He’d not play with a loaded deck,
so he made his way ’cross the sea,
even married an English lass
in one of those great ironies.
Didn’t know first how he’d survive,
but when he settled down to think,
Mick realized that no matter the men
they all thirsted for a good drink.
And out here in cold Montana
there ain’t always that much to do,
Mick’s saloon got some regulars,
now let me tell you of a few…
There’s One-Eyed Bill the gunfighter,
though these days he is a chemist,
does not speak of his wild past,
yet still all the rumors persist.
There’s Mo Salt, the newspaper man,
be cautious of his friendly eyes,
he talks a good game, but his broadsheet
ain’t nothing but a pack of lies.
There with a smile is Helen,
a young woman, pert and pretty,
rents a room from Mick up the stairs,
where men pay for her ‘company.’
They say Norma doesn’t like her,
that the whore has her eyes on Mick,
but doesn’t seem to hate her enough
to turn down a cut of her tricks.
In the corner is ol’ Monty,
Faro dealer, gambler at heart,
given how much he makes at it
most people just call him ‘Shark.’
Not far off sits Indian Joe,
what his real name is, he won’t say.
They say his tribe once camped right here,
they’re all gone, but somehow, he stayed.
The sheriff drinks up by the stage,
listens when the actors came in,
Shakespeare makes most folks scratch their head,
but those words are magic to him.
Red Miller sits at the piano,
on black and white keys his hands roam,
knows every Steven Foster tune,
there’s no place he feels more at home.
Gentry Adams likes to sit by
the bullet-holes left by Beast Sanders,
he rode in the posse to catch him,
left the man somewhat disturbed.
Mick was there when they hanged the Beast,
even framed that morning’s front page,
haven’t seen trouble like that since,
seems like it was another age…
But now the sun bleeds the horizon,
drunk cowboys beginning to croon,
another night for this cow town,
one more night at McCarthy’s Saloon.
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