Cowboy Poetry

Multi-Tool

The old-time cowboys were always shown with bandanas. These bright pieces of fabric that they wore around their necks, sometimes we'd call them wild rags. Turns out those bandanas had a lot of different uses. Now in the coronavirus era, we find they might even have some uses today. This poem is called, Multi-Tool.

In the days of the Old West if you would look and check,

you'd find a cowboy would wear a bandana around his neck.

It was sometimes called a wild rag for bright color that it brings.

It was a big piece of fabric, the cowboy used for many things.

It was used to mop your forehead when the temperature was hot,

or tie up a bandage from an injury you got.

It could filter out your water when you drank it from a tank,

or cover up the bad guys face if he went to rob a bank.

It might repair your saddle when somehow you're rig and bust,

or it might protect your breathing when you're riding through the dust.

It could serve as a towel when you went to wash your face,

or to blindfold wild horse if that needs to be the case.

If you have a busted arm it could be a handy sling,

or in a pinch roping calves, it could be a pig and string.

You could wrap it on your head when the temperature was cold

or grab a skillet or a branding iron that was too hot to hold.

So it seems that old bandana could do anything you ask,

but who'd have guessed that someday it would be a COVID mask.

Happy trails.

Kansas Flint Hills

In 1806, an explorer named Zebulon Pike, traveled through what became the eastern part of Kansas. On September 12th, he wrote in his journal, ''Past very rough Flint Hills, my feet blistered and very sore''. With that, he gave our Flint Hills region its name, and he was right. You need to wear good boots out in these hills. This poem is titled The Kansas Flint Hills.

A traveler leaves Kansas City going west on interstate.

He comes into a region which I want to celebrate.

As he enters rolling range land, there's a sign. His vision fills

a big sign of native stone saying, ''Welcome to the Flint Hills''.

The region takes its name from a long ago hike

when described as Flint Hills by explorer Zebulon Pike.

The stones of Flint or chert which underlie this great landscape,

over centuries made the hills with their unique slope and shape.

Those rocks made it unsuitable for use by farmers plows,

but they made a perfect place to harvest grass by grazing cows.

These hills underlined by rock are a wondrous part of God's creation,

a special part of Kansas and a treasure for our nation.

It's the last remaining tallgrass, a keysight of prairie ecology,

the home of grazing bison and Native American history.

The Flint Hills of Kansas are the world's best for grass.

When it comes to raising beef, this region's world class.

We celebrate this region and the need that it fulfills

for ecology and people in the Kansas Flint Hills.

Happy trails.

Horse Holiday

The old-timer said, "The best thing for the inside of a kid is the outside of horse." I certainly believe that, I enjoy horseback riding to the point that sometimes I lose track of time. This poem is called, "Horse holiday."

I had to go to work, but it was still early yet,

a thought came to my brain and soon my mind was set.

I calculated minutes as the morning clock I had and thought,

"Hey, I've got time to get in a horseback ride."

It would have to be quick, but I'd miss time on my horse,

we just been too damn busy to getting a ride, of course.

The weather would get hot, all the forecasters say,

so it just made sense to ride early in the day.

I got my gilding saddled, the day was nice and clear,

a great day for a ride and a pretty time of year.

I rode on down the lane, went to check the upper pond

and took a Flint Hills trail of which I'm very fond.

We lingered in the valley, detoured through the glade

and followed that annual path which the cows or deer had made.

We enjoyed the hilltop view with its panorama best and then I checked my phone, "Holy smoke." Two hours past. I'd enjoyed the pleasant ride in the morning hilltop climb

to the point that I had totally lost track of all the time.

I gulped up to the barn and unsaddled my old hoss

trying to think how I'd explain this to the boss.

I hurried into work to meet the office norm,

but they said, I had to fill out some type of leave form.

There were different kinds of leave from which I had to pick

but it's not like a vacation and I surely wasn't sick.

I considered making up some kind of Farfetched story,

but instead, I created a brand new category.

After thinking how to say it in a way they would believe

under other, I wrote in two hours of equestrian leave.

Happy trails.

Horse Training

Cowboys love to train animals. Sometimes, the animals can train us. This poem is entitled 'Horse training'.

On a hot summer morning, I walked out to train a young horse we were teaching to ride in the ring. The flies were buzzing in the hot morning sun as I walked to the barn with my two little sons. One said, "Dad, you see those two horses right there

standing together like they were a pair.

They get close together and that's how they graze,

but their heads are facing in opposite ways.

So, the head of the one's by the tail of the other.

Why do they do that?" He asked me and his brother.

I said, "You're a mighty, observant, young man

and I'll answer your question the best that I can.

You see there's lots of flies around this cow lot,

they're a natural pest that we've always got.

The horse uses his tail to shoo off those flies

like I do with my hand if the need should arise,

but the tail is too short to reach that horse's head

so they've learned they can partner with another horse instead.

They can stand close together, one's head by the other's tail.

Then they can shoo the flies off each other without fail.

So that's why the horses stand together that way.

Now, go in the barn and get them some hay."

While the boys did their chores, I stopped and I thought,

"There's a message for me in that lesson I taught.

If horses can learn to cooperate too,

there's no limit to what we as people can do.

There's some things a person can't do as just one.

When we work together, so much more can get done.

If we partner together, which is really my druthers,

we'll share the rewards as we serve each other.

It's a mutual benefit that we can treasure

if like all those horses, we all stand together.

It was time to begin that pony's training lessons,

but I looked at my kids and thanked God for my blessings.

At supper that night my wife says to me,

"How did that training go for the new pony?"

I said, "It went well, but not in the usual way.

My kids and my horses taught me a lot today."

Happy Trails.

Horse Holiday

Horse Holiday by Ron Wilson from Lazy T Ranch

 

Taken from Around Kansas with Deb Goodrich

Hay There

Out here on the ranch, one of the most important crops we produce is hay. It's very important that we harvest peri hay, alfalfa, and have hay stored up for winter feed for our livestock. This poem is called Hay There.

Growing up here on the ranch back when I was just a kid,

Helping bale up hay was the first field job I ever did.

I was too young to drive a tractor, too little to do much,

But I could go to the hay field and help with bales and such.

My dad would drive the tractor, pulling baler and wagon behind,

As we moved across the field where the windrows were aligned.

The baler picked up hay and spit out each small square bale,

Although, occasionally, we'd stop when the knot tier would fail.

The hired man had a hay hook,

He'd pull bales up on the wagon and stack them up five-high until the heat would have him dragging.

My job was to ride on top holding together the stack of hay,

Although, I think the hired man put me there to get me out of the way.

When I got bigger, I became the one to use that sharp hay hook,

Stacking bales up high was the task I undertook.

When the hay rack was full, then I would say, "Oh, darn,"

Because that meant unloading them in that dusty hayloft to the barn.

It was a hot and dusty job in the barn with no breeze moving,

But when it was all done, my dad was so approving.

When we pulled the last bale in with muscles tired and sore,

We would say, "Well, that's the bale that I've been looking for."

The years have come and gone with the changes that entails,

We now use a tractor to move the big round bales.

But when the hay is all put up, I still have the urge to say,

"Now, that's the one we've been looking for," Because we're really making hay.

Happy trails.

Global Positioning

I have discovered a new thing and that is, my phone can navigate me wherever I am going using a global positioning satellite. It's amazing. This poem is called "Global Positioning."

I have a dead gum GPS. It's right there on my phone.

It seems it finds any address mankind has ever known.

I enter a number and the street.

It finds the thoroughfare. It's simply one amazing feat.

My phone directs me there.

It tells me to go right or left and how far to the turn.

It never has left me bereft as I have come to learn.

It advises me which lane to choose, the name of the next street.

It's one amazing thing to use. My roadmap's obsolete,

but there was something I went through.

I thought it was kind of scary.

I had to run some flowers to a country cemetery

I put in where I had to drive, my phone got me right there.

What it said when I arrived is what made me beware.

What gave me such a sense of dread

and caused me consternation, the voice inside my phone just said,

"You've reached your final destination."

Happy trails.

Fly Right

My wife and family and I live on the Lazy T Ranch near Manhattan, Kansas. We run cattle and horses and some other animals. If you have livestock in the hot summer heat, then you're going to have flies.

We contend with flies. This poem I wrote is called Fly Right.

Three cowboys from different places came into a Texas saloon for a drink to relieve their hot afternoon.

The flies were buzzing from near and from far as the three cowboys took their place at the bar.

Each ordered a drink as they had planned, but into each drink, a fly did land.

The first cowboy turned green at the bug in his drink.

To the bartender, he said, "I'll have a different one, I think."

The second cowboy stopped, suddenly fished out the bug and finally drank the beer with a shrug. The third cowboy was from Kansas where times were tough and he wasn't about to put up with this stuff.

He knew this behavior just had to stop because he came from Kansas where we don't waste a drop. The cowboy grabbed the bug and with a big shout, held it over the glass and said, "Now you spit that out."

That'd be true.

The First Cowtowns

Howdy folks, I'm Ron Wilson, poet laureate. The cowboy really came alive in legend at the time of the great cattle drives. The goal of the Texas drovers was to get to Abilene. This poem is in honor of the first cow town.

One of the first cow towns the world had ever seen was the little community known as Abilene. It all began after the Civil War here with demand for beef from the western frontier. A livestock dealer named Joseph McCoy

helped bring about the American cowboy.

He saw Longhorns in Texas running free,

and he knew what an opportunity these could be.

McCoy looked for a place with grass and water abiding,

where he could build a big railroad siding.

He traveled through Kansas on a railroad route west

in search of a town that would suit his request.

When he got to the city of Abilene,

he found the place which he had foreseen.

It became a cattle shipping point henceforth

for Texas drovers, bringing cattle north.

Thousands of Longhorns came up the Chisholm Trail

to the city of Abilene to meet the rail.

The money flowed and cowboys got wild

until the local folks got riled.

In time the cattle trade moved west

in the Texas cattle ranchers quest,

but in the history of the West,

the name still resounds,

Abilene, Kansas, one of the first cow towns.

Happy trails.

Finding the Fence Post

This poem is the true story of a very simple encounter I had one day while riding horseback. It made me think about our pioneer ancestors and the things that we find that might have reminded us about what has gone on before. The poem is entitled, "Finding A Fence Post."

 

I was riding through the hills one breezy, late fall day

Counting cattle and enjoying the ride along the way

I was in the middle of a pasture, quite large, I just might boast

When I came across a single, solitary old hedge fence post

It was clearly not a tree but a post that had been placed

Yet, there was no other sign of human presence in the space

I reined my horse up to a stop, as I paused to look around

And pondered the meaning of this solitary post that I had found

“How did this come to get here?” I sat my horse amused

Had it been a snubbing post that some old cowpuncher used?

Was it the last remaining vestige of some old long mend in fence?

If so, there was no wire or any sign or evidence

Had it been part of a homestead at some old settler's place?

If so, what had happened that it disappeared without a trace?

Had it been placed as a marker by some exploring pioneer

Or a large pole for an Indian who might have camped right here?

“An old fence seemed the most likely case,” I settled on

But why was this post still standing when everything else was gone?

The distant sun was setting, so I must get on with my task

And I'll never know the answers to the questions that I ask

Reluctantly, I rein my horse and gig him to a walk

And ride away thinking, “If only that old post could talk.” Happy trails.