As I walked out in the streets of Manteca,
as I walked out in Manteca one day,
I spied a young cowboy asleep on the sidewalk,
when prodded from slumber these words he did say:
"You are wearing a Stetson, spurs, chaps, and a six-gun:
I assume then you must be a cowboy like me;
come sit down beside me and hear my sad story,
then try to guess which shell is hiding the pea.
'Twas once in the saddle I used to ride gaily,
albeit I had not a horse to my name,
but down in the basement my dad had a saw-horse,
so I rode a steed that could never go lame.
O bury me holding a King and five Aces
with a pint of good whiskey to keep my corpse warm,
and a pair of my custom made dice in my watch fob,
for I'm a young cowboy and I've bought the farm."
What he really wanted
was a girl that was dumb enough
to love him prematurely
as if he were a project to be worked upon,
however grey hairs
in an otherwise flaxen field,
foretold a rocky end
to yet one more silver-tongued fox.
In a frouzy saloon
he hitched-up with a slow thinking,
quick drinking woman,
someone’s ex
on a reliable government check.
Eventually settling down with her
in a holler in West Virginia.
He took off his Stetson,
dutifully plowed her and some scant acres,
while collecting motor parts
for his fantasy truck -
plumb out of luck
he could never quite put it together,
no matter how well
he stummed his old guitar at the local bar.
On Tuesday night, you could hear music playing
old country songs, I knew right from the start
I listened to, all the words they were saying
with stories of an aching, breaking heart
I never knew, there were boot scootin’ angels
all dressed in their mid-western, clothes and styles
in that old bar, filled with root-tootin’ angels
no prairie for at least, 4,000 miles
On Tuesday night, when I heard music playing
old country songs, I knew from long ago
I sang along, to the words they were saying
and felt I’d stepped into, a rodeo
That Mary-Lou, was a boot scootin’ angel
all dressed in her mid-western, clothes and style
she was the queen, of those root-tootin’ angels
with her Stetson hat and Texan smile.
If I was a sheriff
I would wear a gleaming gold star
A holster with silver twin six-shooters
You would be afraid of my sequined Stetson
As I march up and down the street
In my fancy embroidered braided cowboy boots
I would befriend Indians
If I was a sheriff
her face is chiseled but not hard like her father’s
Cher wears a black Stetson with a silver band
is she smoking? Is that allowed in this bar?
I note her makeup, put on by an expert hand
Has she a fashion consultant?
Because she never looked this gorgeous before
I hear she is running for fair queen
She has my vote
Never have I seen her look more beautiful
And she has always been a looker
Even as a six-year-old, I knew she was special
She turns and looks my way. Gives me a wink.
I am excited to say that I know her.
She has facets of personalities and is fun.
Cher, I hope you get queen, I think.
And she does.
.
Just cuz'uh her face
i were will'n to love her rest
She wuz dressed like
the Pinkerton man
until
the auburn locks rolled down her trench
when she removed that well salted
Stetson hat
the rules were about to change
The rustle uv her copper stallion
and the smell uv that
new barn hay
yep
just cuz'uh her face
COCONUTS
A long time ago, 60 years plus I am sorry to say
My grandfather gave me a 78 record to play
On my Dansette player I eagerly did one day
I heard coconuts in the weirdest way.
It went clippety clop, clippety clop
Just like a slow donkey that didn’t stop
Throughout a cowboy kind of song
With an American drawl slow and long.
It was about a mouse at a pantry door
Who had been scratching for a year or more
And when he got through, he would be mighty sore
There weren’t a darn thing in there
Life gets tedious, don’t it.
So that was the song with the coconut clop
It conjured up the wild west with a coconut flop
A Stetson and a cupboard as empty as could be
With a coconut sound for an old gee gee.
work in progress
Footle of Country Bands
S**t Kickers/slide guitar
cowboys
Stetson
John Denver/folk music
“Thank God”
fiddler
Footle Of Rock Bands
Guitar strings/stockings
steely
nylons
Big hair/bands
hairspray
glamour
Roadies/Hotel
seconds
trashed rooms
Thrash/Punk Rock
Bangers
Façade
Growing the fruits of your labor in Socorro county
Around here they call it New Mexico true
Down in Lemitar you can get the best of the best
The warm days' and cool nights, the fields of green chile grew
This crop has become known worldwide in places afar
Dedicated day and night to it being a successful harvest
Long hours and true love of this way of life they embrace
The chile, beautiful and mature, it's the hot days' of August
Sacks of burlap full to the top begin the journey across the state
Crack of the burners, metal cylinders turn, roasted green chile fills the air
This smell, it is nothing short of heaven on earth
Our call to fame with a little New Mexico flare
The season is short, late Autumn wind blows the dust off a cowboys boots
The chile turns deep red now, the last of the season
The ground is bare as I take one last look across the land
The Zia on our flag gives me pride, that's my reason
Why things happen, well who's to say
Perhaps the fields will be green again someday
A hurt in my heart, I lower my Stetson and walk away
The fields belong to spirit now, looking in the distance I see the rain
The sailing ships above my head,
unimageable shapes navigating through,
as I walk the lonely stretch of the beach.
Memories stir chapters of the past.
I always wondered what my life would have been
if I took a different course, then the one I took.
That day the colors fanned out and whiffed
of redolence unmistakable that Spring had arrived.
The sound of the train had wakened me up that day
from thought as I waited for him at the station.
A considerable distance, listing to recurrent rumbling roar
of the train's vibration snaking on the rail score,
metal wheels rhythmic clatters over the rail ties the closer it neared.
He stood still for a minute before he stepped off the train.
He was tall, alluring sculpted body, in a dark brown suit
and Stetson hat, short lace up Oxford shoes; a gentleman.
He was a man I had met while in the service.
We spent a couple of weeks enjoying each other’s company,
but the joy of it wasn’t enough.
He decided to reenlist again, applied for Officer Candidate School.
I didn’t see him again.
His image still imprinted in my mind.
3/8/2023
somber handsome Marlboro man on a painted stallion
a mirage has appeared in the dust bowl wearing chaps
his worn Stetson is pulled low,
he outshines the cover of a juicy romance novel
I do not know his name but he takes my breath away
he rides to the west
In my mind I'm a cowpoke
Glass of jack in my hand
Watching Texas Two step
To a Texas Swing Band.
I've got slim line Levi's jeans
And a black Stetson hat
and tooled leather boots
I'm a real cool cat.
There's no jingling spurs
Or pistols slapping leather
Just the sound of the couples
Dancing close together.
This place is Hicksville,
Any state, Western USA
The time is the present
The date is today.
No hitching rail of horses
Ears twitching in the breeze
Just a big concrete car park
Full of dusty SUVs.
As the last notes of swing
Slide down past my ears,
I open my eyes
And reality appears.
No glass of Jack
Just a mug of cold tea;
No roomful of dancers
Just lonely old me.
There'll come a time
But I don't know when
I'll close my eyes
And go back there again.
Slumped in my chair
I know I'll soon find
Hicksville, USA, filed
Bright and clear in my mind
It's been a long ride;
beneath me a phantom horse wheezes
its lungs blown.
I chose a slow death
not some youthful suicide.
Illness and a life
misused
took its pound of flesh,
the surgeons knives
were never far from my body.
If I had a Stetson
I would tip it to a fair lady
and ride slowly on,
but I have just this keyboard,
and it does not play
long symphonies any more,
just brief words
that pluck a few
faltering heart-strings.
The sheriff of despair
has chased me
all along this long trail,
so far I am ahead
and so is my horse,
just.
There’s a global inflation problem
everywhere lungs are puffed up
heads are swollen.
Balloons increase in volume overnight.
The cost of rubber bands
has been stretched to its limits.
We recall sadly the heady days of deflation,
when shrinkage gave us more space
to spread, to drink our fill
of a less bloated air.
Politicians and pronouns
are loudly popping
empty suits and Stetson hats
billow and blow more than we can
know.
We see the mushrooming clouds
of bluster and bluff from afar.
The world pumps on way too hard
continents expand beyond their land.
The sky busts out of its high wide window.
Soon we shall see
how it will be before the big bang
as we escalate into fat flatulent globs
and awfully slow, bulky, bouncing blimps.
A voice of gravel wrapped in velvet
Bringing a warmth to every song,
Laid back and gentle as
Every track moved along.
He looked so tall and lanky in
Photographs of his early years
With the trade mark white Stetson
Perched so precisely above his ears.
Rainbow at Midnight
Walking the Floor Over You
Have You Ever Been Lonely
Filipino Baby, Seaman’s Blues
Somewhere in every track
I seemed to hear a smile,
Simple songs of the time
With no trickery or guile.
I think his music still as fresh
As those fifty years ago or more
When I first listened to the music of
Ernest Tubb, The Texas Troubadour.
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.