The horse whinnied,
are you alone?
He ran off into the light,
afraid of the night.
Boy what are you doing here?
You're far off trail arent you?
All the posse is up there,
I know all these mountains.
He was the lead horse in a wagon train,
It was a lot of mountain.
He could not climb,
his major wanted him to master it.
A peak of the angered god,
the winds howl with a human voice.
commanding him with persuasion,
but it's a tricky climb lord.
Stradeling a virgin peak,
He shouted at the sky.
Let's go boy,
yes we'll make it.
Come on boy,
there's a cave up there.
Get the lantern,
light my way.
This cave has no bottom,
now what?
We can continue on,
or we can fall.
I don't like the odds,
I can't do either.
You can sit here frightened,
or take a leap of faith.
Alright enough, enough,
I will continue climbing.
Take up my slack,
pull boy, pull!
Together we can get it done,
just keep going,
Don't look down,
let's go, giddy up.
I see stars,
I see the moon.
I hear wind,
we'll be home soon.
Marshall Dillon in Gunsmoke
Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide
Paladin Have Gun will Travel
John Wayne in bunches of westerns
the pattern was easy....
The cowboys always win
Hero wears a light hat
Villain is stuck with black hat
Indians never win
TV in the 60’s gave me new terms
Dance hall girl, sage brush, wagon train
I reminisce about the wild west I know
Read a book once
Folded the corners
To mark my progress.
It was sort of a
Wagon train read
Long, torturous,
A seemingly endless quest
For an unknown destination
Pictured only in the minds
Of others
Who
Sadly
Were only aggrandizing
What they were told.
The book I read
Had been chosen for me
By a deranged
English teacher/football coach
Before the era of the
Concussion Protocol.
The Book Report I wrote
Received an “A”
I believe because
I trashed the book
Question why it was assigned
As it was a tedious read
Containing statistical
As well as anecdotal
Documentation
Of its unreadability
Or more likely because
He was hung over
After the football team
Beat our traditional rival.
He is on his riding mower.
He looks like me,
only he owns a rich man's house,
a garden measured in acres -
his skin is better.
No picket fences: this is upscale America.
Long drives and old stone walls; gated.
A cultural dream
pioneering into new luxury,
the way covered wagons once did,
canvas closed, oxen quietly moving on
into territory that's hard to imagine.
I see him standing
near his wide columned front door,
he is smiling the way I smile
when I think no one is looking.
I like him, and imagine his beautiful
wife in my arms.
He left the wagon train,
to strike out on his own.
They found the green valley,
gold seams under their feet,
and the land already posted,
to keep others out.
Like a slow-moving westbound wagon train in 1887,
filled with brave souls departing a land of nightmares; or like
a 13-year-old in no-man's-land looking at 18 and wishing he could
push a button capable of fast-forwarding at least 5 years; Or like
a lazy and lonely Sunday afternoon without scenes or sounds.
Yes, it felt like the sands of time in the hourglass were made of snails.
It was a time and place never loved by me, but it was where my story
began. It was the blessed home of the privileged few and the very rich.
It was the unfortunate abode of the underprivileged and the very poor.
It was a piece of American geography that never felt like home to me.
My best dream was that time would grow wings faster and fly me away.
My primary goal was to depart, not be from there, and never return.
There was a day on TV
When westerns were all the rage
Together our masked hero the Lone Ranger
with Tonto kept outlaws in their cage
Wagon Train kept rolling along
Seth Adams the leader
Flint McCullough chief scout
old Charlie Wooster was the feeder
My all-time favorite Cowboy
had to be clearly Wagon Train
Flint was my all-time hero
my chief scout taking the strain!
Was the worst behind or before them?
They could imagine, but they never knew.
I never thought much of it back then, back there.
I was just a boy enjoying the weekly television show.
It was a show about a wagon train of Americans heading West.
They knew their past misfortunes, but were driven by their dreams.
At the beginning of every drive, invariably, there were seven words
I heard the leader say, "Head em up; move em out. Rawhide!"
071822PS
He is on his riding mower.
He looks like me,
only he owns a rich man's house,
a garden measured in acres -
his skin is better.
No picket fences; this is upscale America.
Long drives and old stone walls, gated.
A cultural dream
pioneering into new luxury,
the way covered wagons once did;
canvas closed, oxen quietly moving on
into territory that's hard to imagine.
I see him standing
near his wide columned front door
He is smiling the way I smile
when I think no one is looking.
I like him, and imagine his beautiful wife
in my arms.
We have left the wagon train,
have struck out on our own,
we found the green valley;
gold seams under our feet,
the land is already posted
to keep others out.
An old black and white movie
took me back to my childhood
when cowboys rode the range
Major Adams and Flint McCullough leading the Wagon Train,
and Hopalong's ten-gallon white hat
rode the brim of John Wayne's stagecoach in back;
with Roy and Dale saving every day
as Tonto and the Lone Ranger hi-ho silvered away;
Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates blazed the Rawhide trails
as Ben, Adam, Hoss, and Joe laid the Ponderosa tails;
The Mavericks never bet against The Rifleman and Gunsmoke truths
while Wyatt Earp, Matt Dillon, and Bat Masterson made the law fool-proof,
the Rebel and The Restless Gun kept horses ever on the run
and Cheyenne, Davy Crocket, and Daniel Boone
fought both Indians and Trappers without showdowns at noon
those western stars of early radio and television shows after school.
These were the stories of so many heroes, villains and more jewels
the cowboys and cowgirls, and their horses too
revived the west for the fifties youth,
a blast from the past
of the fading western stars.
Wandering the maze of sanity
has now become a harsh challenge
to the psyche as insanity fuels
itself with echoing bigotry
soaring like starving hawks
while vultures are daily treated
to sights of warm human appetizers
laying out on blood-stained turf tables.
If only lives could be as treasured
and as recyclable as are old cold weapons
of war that continues to be allowed
to seek the devouring warmness of life.
The yellow roses in a lone star field of dreams
droop in waters of tears and dried blood;
long-horned cows and egrets go about symbiotically,
as wagon train-like funeral processions pass by:
Meanwhile, congress-persons attend NRA banquets.
Classic T V
William Tell, Robin Hood,
Ena Sharples in the snug,
Gibbs SR whiter teeth,
Billy Bunter getting grief,
Hawkeye, Ivanhoe,
Twelve-inch screen full of snow.
Range rider, Wagon Train,
Dragnet, the Army game,
Francis Drake pirate ships,
Seventy-seven sunset strip,
Palladium on Sunday night,
Classic shows in black and white.
Take your pick, double your money,
Arthur Haynes so very funny,
Armchair Theatre, play of the week,
Candid Camera on the street,
I Love Lucy, laugh a lot,
Say goodnight with a little white spot.
THE LETTER PARODY
(MISTER MUELLER WROTE ME A LETTER)
(To the tune of THE LETTER by the Boxtops 1968)
Gimme a ticket on an aeroplane.
Ain't got time to take a freight train.
Ima leavin home! Never go back home!
Mister Mueller he wrote me a letter.
Well he wrote me a letter
but I throwed it in the trash
and I shredded trash today.
Tell him maybe that I died
or I been Shanghaid
or I'm lost in Mandalay.
Mister Mueller he wrote me a letter.
Gimme a ticket on an aeroplane.
Find me a boat or a wagon train.
Mister Mueller he wrote me a letter.
(be the first to record this Parody I hope you make a million dollars. LOL)
© ron wilson aka vee bdosa the doylestown poet
Three of a kind for as long as we can
remember. Parents would shake their heads,
wonder when we’d grow up and get serious
about serious stuff. We egged each other
on. “Did you see that strawberry roan
in the field on the way to school?” “I’ll loan
you my book of ranch-girl poems!”
We loved dogs and anything with hooves,
and words that rhymed or not, that made
sense in a westwind sort of way.
We rode our imaginations bareback.
We never grew up. And now it’s come
to this – no Cowboy Poetry this year
for the old-west Wagon Train event. We’ll
meet on Main Street anyway, to watch
the teams come into town; stand
on the corner, listening for hooves
on pavement drumming to the heart. Just
the three of us reading horse poems
to each other and anyone who cares to listen.
And when the first big black Percheron
comes into view – a wagon-teamster’s Pegasus –
we’ll be flying 17-hands-high on the horses
of our never-grown-up dreams.
Don’t hold me to blame.
The road was never straight
nor the wind mild of frame
Your bedside monitor screeches
one incessant, contrary acoustic.
Giving notice to all abroad that
time has moved on elsewhere
Let me raise you up and brush
away the marks that play a
cracked tune on your broken
parts, like a drummer breaking sticks
The glass of your eye
holds the drink of my heart,
where champagne bubbles try
to revive an empty space no
longer receiving its rhythmic pulse
The mood of your limbs ,
restrained by dysfunctional form
and snared by aseptic plastic,
bring a darkness to this room.
And, like American Indians
encircling a wagon train,
Dante's allegorical limbo
encircles your bed, pining
for your life renunciated husk
Pocomoto was a cowboy who inspired dreams galore
With adventures and heroics that lit up my days of yore.
He survived the cruel killing of a ravaged wagon train
Was adopted by ‘old-timers’; lived in camps across the plain.
He rode fast across the prairie pushing forward on his steed;
Bronco Buster, Buff’lo Hunter, helped the Rangers when in need.
Pocomoto the Li’l Fella went in search of desert gold
Single-handed fought the bandits, constant evil, heat and cold.
Independence, resolution were the traits that showed his best,
Self-reliant, conquered hardships in the wild and famous West.
There are plenty years behind me but I often tend to find
Pocomoto’s recollection in the corners of my mind.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6th May 2014
Contest: Howdy Pard
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Placing: 2nd
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