GOODNIGHT GOES RIDING

And Other Poems

Copyright © Rod Miller, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission.

Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author,s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published and printed in the United States by Pen-L Publishing, Fayetteville, Arkansas

www.Pen-L.com

ISBN: 978-1-940222-63-9

ebook: 978-1-940222-64-6

Cover design by Jay Griffith, Holmes & Co.

Formatting by Kelsey Rice

This book is dedicated to Earl Pickles,

with whom the author has had the privilege of

co-writing some fine cowboy poems.

GOODNIGHT GOES RIDING

And Other Poems

Rod Miller

Spur Award-winning poet and author

Pen-L Publishing

Fayetteville, AR

Pen-L.com

CONTENTS

Foreword

Author’s Note

Introduction

ONE: The Wild West

Goodnight Goes Riding

Migrations

Tools of the Trade

Equitation Equation

Boot Salute

Don’t Just Sit There

Lamentation for a Living Legend

Don’t Ask Me

Heads or Tails

Nothing Extra

A Good Hand With A Rope

Song of the Stampede

The Hunt for Rafael Lopez

Aftershock

One old cowboy’s lunchsack opinions

Not Counting Saddlebags

Mule Whisperer

Riding Old Red

Square Peg

Spring Works Sonnet

TWO: Arena Dirt

What Goes Cowboy Up

The Colorful Pageantry of Rodeo

Rodeo Coming!

Before the Dance

Lending a Hand a Hand

Barrel Roll

Crowd Pleaser

Second Opinion

For Love

On the Road

Acquired Taste

Tied for the Average

Horses of a Different Color

Gear Bag

THREE: Ruminations

Haiku for a Cowboy’s Education

Long Time Ago

The Travail, Which God Hath Given

The Second Book of Job

Manifest Destiny

Upon Stony Places

Haiku for Autumn

Keeping the Books

Semi-Retired

Haiku for a Horseback Morning

Gone

Haiku for Hunger

Packsaddle

The Beauty of Mountains

Acknowledgements

About the Author

FOREWORD

by A.J. Mangum

Rod Miller first crossed my radar when I became the editor of Western Horseman magazine, for which Rod had been a frequent contributor, authoring poems and feature articles on rodeo athletes, musicians, artists and frontier history. In the genre of contemporary western non-fiction, in which the talent pool can be frighteningly shallow, Rod stood out from the crowd as a bona fide journalist and poet, one truly inspired by his subjects, and in possession of the writing chops to tell their stories with honesty, clarity and respect.

In his features and profiles, Rod steers clear of the Marlboro Man mythology that weighs down, even negates, so much of what’s presented as journalism about the contemporary West. Instead, he strives to produce lively, meaningful documentation of a culture for which he happens to possess a deep passion. With a reporter’s eye, he sees through affectations and clichés, and chases subjects that share a certain rawness, a collective identity shaped by a sense of adventure and a reverence for horses and the natural world. Rod’s non-fiction is, at its heart, a modern twist on the real-life saga of the untamed frontier.

Likewise, Rod’s poetry is infused with a genuineness that elevates his work above the medium’s predictable yarns and gives the reader a front-row seat at a captivating reality-based dramedy. You observe from a respectful distance the poignant moment shared by a young girl and her horse. You take a seat at the kitchen table in a ranch house in which the “romance of cowboy life” is balanced against the realities of mortgages, droughts and volatile markets. And you’re let in on the West’s unique brand of humor, shaped by hard luck, eccentricity, and the unpredictability of lives shaped by the land, weather and livestock. Rod is a truthteller.

And truth can, on occasion, be dangerous.

There’s an anecdote I’ve never shared with Rod (until now). One morning, more than a decade ago, while I was still with Western Horseman, my phone rang, interrupting a hurried round of last-minute proofreading. The first words from the caller: “I got a complaint about an article y’all ran.” The caller directed me to a specific page in that year’s February issue.

I’m sure I sighed heavily and rolled my eyes as I pushed aside a stack of as-yet-unproofed article layouts, pulled the issue in question from my bookshelf, and navigated to the page number the caller had referenced, at which point I likely rolled my eyes yet again.

The caller had used the word “article.” I was sure he wanted to vehemently disagree with the horsemanship regimen prescribed in an instructional piece, or share some seedy gossip about the subject of a recent personality profile. The page in question, though, didn’t contain a section of an “article.” It was home to one of Rod’s poems, a work that contains what is perhaps my favorite Rod Miller storyline.

In the poem, a rancher complains about a hired hand who takes a frustratingly casual approach to his work. The hand is increasingly unreliable; his work goes undone as he wastes the day with catnaps and childish games; he’s in-capable of putting work ahead of play, leaving the rancher, who’s narrating the story, with few options. At the end of the poem, said rancher expresses great regret at having to fire the hand, who is revealed in the poem’s final syllable to be the rancher’s father.

Despite my dry recap above, the poem is a hilarious, yet profound, commentary on the passing of a ranch from one generation to the next. In my reading (and subsequent overthinking), the son has likely observed his father’s role closely and aspired to it for as long as he can recall, but even as he assumes leadership of the family business, has little appreciation for the toll the job will take, or the relief his father must feel in handing over the reins to the outfit.

To continue my over-analysis: The father, after a lifetime of hard labor, has resolved to seize every opportunity to enjoy each moment of his remaining years. In his behavior, which so confuses his son, there’s an unbridled joy that brings to mind the antics of many aging cowboys who’ve been lucky enough to trade the burdens of their work for a brand of overdue wild abandonment. Both the son’s consternation and the father’s casual lack of concern – over anything – bring smiles to my face, as well as memories of my father and my uncles, any of whom I can picture in the role of the father in Rod’s poem.

Dealing with phone calls from confused readers is one of the less appealing line items in a magazine editor’s job description, as you’re often put in the awkward position of having to tactfully inform a stranger that he might be an idiot. When I landed on Rod’s poem, I figured the caller had simply referenced the wrong issue.

“Sir, are you sure you’re talking about the February issue?” I (probably) asked. “Because the February issue actually came out in January, so you might be thinking of ….”

“No, it’s the February issue. I’m looking at it right here.”

“Do you have the right page number? Because I’m looking at that page, and it’s actually not an article. It’s a poem by Rod Miller, and ….”

“That’s the one. That’s the article I’m talking about.”

What followed was simply bizarre.

The caller had taken Rod’s clearly fictional poem (written in rhyming verse and illustrated by a cartoon) to be a non-fiction, journalistic report about a ranch on which a senior citizen had been unjustly fired. The caller insisted that the rancher should be ashamed of himself, and demanded both the rancher’s name and an apology by the magazine for its unfair reporting of the situation, which seemed to the caller entirely too one-sided. No one had even interviewed the old man.

I swear I am not making this up.

In the background of the call, I could hear excited, angry chatter. The caller wasn’t alone. I pictured a kitchen full of people (who somehow had nothing better to do at 10 in the morning) riled up at the treatment of a character in a poem one of them had stumbled across in a magazine that happened to be on the table. They were so upset, they were interrupting one another with imagined observations about the offending “article.”

“How could an employer be so…?!?”

“It’s age discrimination! It’s…!”

“Such a lack of respect for his own…!”

“And it’s the older generation that taught us to…!”

I was confident I wasn’t the victim of a practical joke. The call was real. At an appropriate gap in the din emanating from the other end of the line, I began improvising for the caller a simplistic explanation for the words (and the cartoon!) that appeared on the page before him.

“Sir,” I (probably) began. “This is a poem. You may have noticed it’s written in stanzas and the lines rhyme, which isn’t a traditional format for the reporting of a news story. This isn’t something that actually happened.”

I think I then began some misguided attempt at literary analysis: generational perspectives, themes derived from the pressures of ranching economics, potential backstories of the key characters – all for nought. I think I lost the guy at “This is a poem.”

The call did not end well. By that point, I’d been a magazine editor for a dozen years and had endured hours of unearned abuse from uninformed strangers with an abundance of free time. Whereas I might’ve once allowed even the craziest of callers to believe he’d successfully made his point, for no other reason than to end a call and get back to work, I’d reached a stage at which I was perfectly happy to let a deranged crank bellow into the void as I (at best) half-listened, registering only that he was still consuming oxygen, as I perused paperwork or browsed headlines on the Internet.

When this particular caller realized I wasn’t giving in – that I would not agree to a printed apology, or even agree to characterize the poem in question as a news story steeped in controversy – there was some parting shot about sabotaging newsstand sales in his corner of Oklahoma.

More power to you, I thought, confident neither the caller nor his entourage could possibly have the wherewithal to locate a bookstore or newsstand. Somewhere in the Sooner State’s Osage County, there is a Western Horseman subscriber still fuming, his ire unrequited.

The poem in question follows this Foreword.

As for my point: Rod Miller’s work – even his fiction, obviously even his poetry – is steeped in reality. His explanations of a character’s motivations, his descriptions of an environment or a set of sensory experiences or the play-by-play of an action-sequence … even when they’re pure fiction, even when they’re riotously funny, there’s a vital realism that infuses his work with unquestionable credibility, so much so that, at least for certain categories of readers, the simplest of yarns can be mistaken for hard-hitting news reports. Despite such dangers, that ever-present foundation of truth allows Rod to get past the surface novelty of a subject and offer readers greater meaning – greater understanding – through vicarious experiences and unexplored viewpoints. It’s an end goal to which every writer should aspire.

A.J. Mangum is the editor of Ranch & Reata magazine.

No Enjoyment in Unemployment

His staples won’t stick to fence posts,

Nor his brands to a slick calf’s hide.

And I’m weary of hearing his lying boasts

About the rank broncs he can ride.

He never remembers to pack a lunch

And he’s forever bummin’ a smoke;

His turn to buy a round for the bunch

Somehow always finds him broke.

His loops won’t fit over a critter’s head,

Nor can they find their way to a hock.

He often gets lost right here on the spread

When sent out to gather stock.

The calves he castrates get infection.

The hay he bales turns to mold.

Colts he schools all need correction

If we hope to get them sold.

His saddle horses are cinch-galled

With sore backs and withers fistulous.

His lasso rope is so twisted and balled

And kinked and knotted it’s ridiculous.

His tack is always in disrepair.

Horseshoes he nails on never fit.

Compare his saddle to his easy chair

And you’ll see where he’d rather sit.

The chaps he borrowed have gone astray.

The spurs I loaned him are missing too.

And I have to follow him around every day

To do the jobs he forgets to do.

I guess you can see why I let him go;

He’s the sorriest hand I’ve ever had.

But, still, I just can’t help feeling low

About giving the sack to my Dad.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This collection features poems about the American West. Some conform, more or less, to the styles of rhyme and meter typical of cowboy poetry. Others wander off that trail to include poems with rhyme but no meter and poems with neither rhyme nor meter. Some of my friends in the cowboy poetry universe will find the latter troubling, and a few will dismiss such poems altogether, refusing to even acknowledge free verse as poetry.

But, cowboys routinely break out of the pen and jump fences and shed hobbles and otherwise escape fetters in many aspects of life and, to me, that spirit also applies to poetry. Besides, as my friend DW Groethe puts it, “I don’t waste my time on the debate. I have better things to do.”

As for the introductory poem, “An Apology to Readers, Sort Of, But More Like an Explanation or Maybe an Excuse,” I mean every word of it. Please forgive my poetic inadequacies and cut me some slack.

ONE

The Wild West

Goodnight Goes Riding

He rides and he rides

Across so plain an expanse

That an anthill is an eminence

And a buffalo wallow a landmark.

And he rides.

Shortgrass stems nod in

Insistent wind, waving

Through more miles than he sees

As he nods in the saddle

As he rides.

As he rides,

The saddle stops rocking

And his eyes open to see

A maw in the Llano

Fall away from the forefeet

Of the horse he rides.

Raven wings silently

Slice the sky below.

Juniper green gashes

Its way down the canyons to

Sip at Prairie Dog Town Fork.

And he rides.

He rides a game trail

Off the caprock,

Wends past hoodoos of

Eroded Permian

Imagining longhorns

Grazing under shaded

Mesas and mesquite.

Plants a ridgepole over a

Badger hole, nails up a door

And calls Palo Duro home

For himself and

A hundred thousand cattle.

And he rides.

He rides.

Migrations

I hear them in the evening winging northward—

Their eager, maybe longing, kind of sound.

It reminds me that we’ll soon be done with calving;

That branding time ain’t far from coming ’round.

And I think how fall works really ain’t that distant;

Shipping calves under sundown pewter skies

Wherein arrowpointed flocks are winging southward,

Trailing echoes of urgent, mournful cries.

Tools of the Trade

Three busted legs on the left side and another one on

the right.

Feet both mashed when falling broncs chose them as places

to light.

Near lost an eye to a broken rope. Dallies took a finger and

a half.

Got twisted in the coils and ’bout lost an arm one time

roping a calf.

For forty years I forked a horse

for forty a month and found;

two score years in the stirrups

at forty a month and found.

Pile-driving mounts on cold mornings rattled my

backbone loose,

leaping and lunging and plunging, snapping my neck like

a noose.

Black nails on a thumb and two fingers. Horseshoe nail

scars on the rest.

Hoof tracks all up and down both legs. Bite marks all

over my chest.

For forty years I forked a horse

for forty a month and found;

two score years in the stirrups

at forty a month and found.

Plumbing runs slow, if at all, from leather pounding

my backside.

Knees so bowed a dog can run through. Toes point

outward and wide.

My hips are kinked in a permanent bend, fingers curled to

fit reins.

There’s no part of me that ain’t used up—if you don’t

count my brains.

For forty years I forked a horse

for forty a month and found;

two score years in the stirrups

at forty a month and found.

From winters up on the high line to summers down on

the border,

all those outfits over all those years couldn’t have

worked me harder.

They took all I had—and not just me—used every hand

they could find.

But with all they took—and all they used—they never

wanted my mind.

For forty years I forked a horse

for forty a month and found;

two score years in the stirrups

at forty a month and found.

Equitation Equation

The laws of nature are immutable;

Mathematical laws are inscrutable;

Now and then with these realities I collide:

That equations must balance

In each and every circumstance

Is at odds with what happens when I ride.

Each time I saddle up and mount,

By a strict mathematical count,

One dismount is required for equilibrium.

But my equestrian situation

Disagrees with that calculation—

I fall off horses more often than I get on ’em.

Don’t Just Sit There

It’s held a gather of henhouse eggs

and huckleberries plucked in the wild.

It’s fanned a passel of recalcitrant mounts

bucking out ornery and riled.

I wave it around whilst sorting calves

—I’ll even throw it to turn one back—

and it’s mighty handy as a bludgeon

to beat off a mad cow attack.

It affectionately swats my wife’s backside,

and balky horses, smart on the rump.

It’s been feed bucket for a bait of grain

and trough for water drawn from a pump.

It’s even been used as a signal flag

to start a Fourth of July race.

And it’s done lots of duty at naptime

as a sunshade plopped over my face.

It sweeps snow from saddle seat in winter

and brushes summer dust off my duds.

(It once served as emergency underwear

when I’s caught unaware in the bathtub.)

It’s no wonder it’s worn out and weary,

battered and tattered till it looks half dead

—I’ve kept this old hat so damn busy

it ain’t had time to just sit on my head.

Lamentation for a Living Legend

Y ou’re cold and wet all winter.

In summer, hot and dry.

Y ou’re all of the above in spring and fall;

It’s always freeze or fry.

And the wind is your constant companion,

Blowing all the year round;

Chilled by icebergs or hot from hell’s oven

It tumbles over the ground.

The weeds and the trees and the bushes

Are thorny, spiny, and sharp.

Every stone and boulder for miles around

Collects ’neath your bedroll tarp.

The food is monotonous and awful

And tends to stick in the craw;

It’s always served up the same shade of brown

And what ain’t overcooked is raw.

The horses all buck every morning

And sull up in the afternoon,

They spook when you get close to cattle;

Come apart when it’s least opportune.

The cows are panicky and skittish;

They run at the drop of a hat;

And always stampede in the badlands and

Breaks; never out on the flat.

Y ou work every day and part of each night

For wages pitifully small.

All you own is a kack and your sougans

And whatever your saddlebags haul.

Yet the books make us out to be heroes.

About us, epics are made

That say working cattle a-horseback

Is a life we would not trade.

This work, steeped in myth and legend,

Could make a feller a snob—

If it weren’t for the fact that we’re cowboys

’Cause we can’t find a decent job.

Don’t Ask Me

I know it ain’t The Cowboy Way

And that’s why I’m ashamed to say

That this cowboy cannot dance.

I used to try, when I got the chance,

To two-step, waltz, and swing.

But dancing—it just ain’t my thing.

I could dance when I used to drink.

At least that’s what I used to think.

I thought that I was handsome, too,

But stone cold sober, neither was true.

So I quit tripping the light fantastic

When I realized my moves were spastic.

And there’s another reason I’d rather sit

When it comes to dancing; why I quit:

Whether dancing to jukeboxes or live bands,

Other dancers kept stepping on my hands.

Heads or Tails

“It seems to me,” the old man says

Whilst carving away on a stick,

“That with all your years of schoolin’

You’ve yet to learn a lick.”

I’m clinching nails on his old blue mare

In the heat of a midsummer’s day;

Three more mounts in line for footwear

—Shoein’s how I earn my pay.

The old feller spits and whittles

And passes judgment now and then

From his seat on an upturned bucket

In the skimpy shade of the hog pen.

“You’re a mite unsteady with that rasp,”

He says, “that shoe ain’t sittin’ quite flat.”

He did it better in his day, he says,

And without no diploma, at that.

“I never had much eddication,” he says,

“Shod horses ’cause it’s all I knew.”

Spits and whittles, says, “Watch that quick!”

And, “Don’t be shapin’ the hoof to the shoe!”

Then, “Looks to me like a feller like you,

What with college and the books he’s read,

Oughta be smart enough for a better job—

One where his butt ain’t higher’n his head.”

For Marc Otte

Nothing Extra

There’s Red and Rusty, Buster and Buck

And Jesse and Jake and Cody and Chuck;

There’s Slim and there’s Pete, Logan and Ty,

And J-W, J-R, T-C, and P-Y.

But Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault?

Does that sound like any cowboy you know?

No ranny, no twister, no peeler or waddy

Would sport a name so pretentious and gaudy.

Nor does a handle like that attached to a Canuck

Paint a picture of a man who could ride horses that buck.

But this drifter knew broncs; was, in fact, a top hand

Who topped off remudas across this wide land,

Became rich and famous, known far and wide

As an hombre with caballos, a man who could ride.

So it’s best not to put too much stock in names—

This Dufault you don’t know, you know as Will James.

A Good Hand With A Rope

I seen him do it a hundred times:

give lie to the idea that a cowboy

won’t do no job

that can’t be done horseback.

Many’s the day he’d ride in

from his cow work, strip his saddle,

shoo his horse into the corral,

and untie his forty-foot hemp.

For a score and fourteen years

he’d cowboyed that country,

making a hand for any brand he wanted

then for good reason or none at all

draw his time and try other pastures

when it suited him.

He seemed content, then, alone in the

bunkhouse of our one-hired-hand outfit.

Those late days I’d finish up

the barnyard chores—splashing a pail

of water into the henhouse trough,

milking half the cow and giving the

hind tits to her penned-up calf and an

adopted dogie. He paid me attention

even though I’s just a kid. Worse,

the boss’s kid. Worse still, a girl.

He’d shake out a loop and snake a catch

on the gatepost and wrap the rope

around his hind end and sit on it till

it took a good bite. Then turn, turn, turn;

Counting cadence with skiprope rhymes

dredged up from a childhood no one knew

while I jump jump jumped in whipped-up

dust as amber air faded gray.

Song of the Stampede

On the far horizon, clouds pulse with lightning glow;

Rolling thunder knots the night guard all up tight.

The cattle on their bellies chew cud and moan and low,

But, in a flash, could rise in fear and flight.

Song seems insufficient, but he croons his repertoire

Hoping against hope the melodies calm the storm.

The sky grows thick and heavy, twinkling nary a star,

And grass leans into wind, gusty and warm.

Cocinero has a feeling, so the pots and pans get stowed

And he rousts out the flunky, rolled in bed.

They wrestle with the wagon sheets to cover up the load

As the wind tears clouds to tatters overhead.

The remuda paws and snorts; the nighthawk herds ’em close

While night horse saddle cinches pull up snug.

The air is fairly crackling and the rain scent fills your nose

Then boots fill empty stirrups like a plug.

With one eye on the cattle and the other to’ard the camp

The night guard hopes that help is coming soon.

Lightning flashes close, steams and sizzles through the damp.

Thunder swallows all that’s left of his last tune.

Before the rumble fades away thunder of another kind

Trembles the earth as cattle break and run.

Saddle horses race the torrent for any hoofhold they can find

For if you stumble in the dark you are done.

Sun rises, come the morning, in a sky empty and blue.

Scattered cattle graze as if there’s nothing wrong.

Horses, heads hung low, carry the weary cowboy crew

Nodding off to the meadowlark’s daybreak song.

The Hunt for Rafael Lopez

Last seen, we suppose,

in the belly of the mountain

in darkness only Jonah knows.

The Minnie’s drifts and stopes

concealing all—except the brilliance

of blood shed on mountain slopes,

crying out from lake shore,

spilled on streets,

the life drained from four.

His manna a pilfered lunchbox;

mean meals of immigrants

seeking a home among rocks.

The blackness of his lair

dimmed by smoke

sent by the law to find him there.

But he, a wisp, hovering at the Incline,

left in darkness another two

bleeding and dying.

Did it end in that mine, his luck?

His bones, in a powder

blast turned to muck

and hauled out mingled with ore,

stamped to dust in the mill

and swept from the floor,

the final judgment of Rafael

the refiner’s fire—

the smelting and burning of hell;

a life, in the end, a total loss,

his epitaph:

Rafael Lopez: Dross.

Aftershock

Then, leaving a bloody

young Lot Huntington

splayed on the fence rails,

Rockwell rides away.

Doc Faust and them

of the posse who

saw the gunplay

stand stock still in the

drift of powder smoke in the

chill winter dawn.

Damn, some one of them

says. Fool kid ought to’ve

knowed better than to

draw down on ol’ Port.

Then pistols spill out the

stage station door followed

by other horse thieves,

hands raised to heaven

or Rockwell

had he stayed to see it.

One old cowboy’s lunchsack opinions offered in a young boy’s presence one October afternoon on the Allotment

damn shore things’s changed

be foolish to say other

but them goodoldays never

was same’s they was—

gimme nother’n them readymades

—even back then

man namea Glidden

they say was what

laid the West to rest—

him with his coils uv

cherubim’s swords straightenin

up all the edges uv the range—

but ain’t no four strands uv

bobwar stapled to no cedar posts

long enough er strong enough

er wide enough er high enough

to fence in the cowboy

ner out neither one

Not Counting Saddlebags

“A woman’s purse,” the cowboy said,

“is a curious thing I don’t get.

I’ve seen ladies tote them all my life

and I don’t understand them yet.

“It seems a lot more stuff goes in

than ever comes back out—

always rubbish that no one needs;

just junk you could do without.

“You’ll never see a cowboy tied

to something as silly as a reticule.

No ma’am, it’d never happen.

No man would be such a fool.

“A hand just wouldn’t burden himself

with all that debris and mess

so he doesn’t need some silly satchel

to pack it around,” he says.

“That sounds to me,” his wife replied,

“like what lands behind a bull.

You not only carry more containers,

you keep loading ’til they’re all full.

“Start with those pockets on your vest.

One’s bulging with a can of snuff.

The other’s packed with horseshoe

nails, fence staples, and other such stuff.

“And both the pockets on your shirt

are stuffed with so much crap

like tally books and feed store receipts

that you can’t even snap the flaps.

“Five more pockets on your pants.

And they still won’t hold all your trash.

Pickup keys. Pocket knife. Pliers.

Empty checkbook. Fifty-two cents cash.

“Not to mention a pair of gloves,

whang leather, and pocket lint,

a set of rattlesnake rattles

and an arrowhead made of flint.

“And you’ve got the guts—or lack

of brains—to question a lady’s purse?

These handbags may not be perfect,

but your method of packing is worse.

“The way you poke and prod for misplaced

bits is so indecent it’s a scandal.

Women have the sense to consolidate

things, and to carry them with a handle.

“We never lose or mislay our things.

We can search every cranny and nook

and cubbyhole within seconds,

because there’s only one place to look.

“So you see, you stupid cowboy,

a woman’s handbag isn’t funny.

If your way of doing things was half as

smart, maybe you’d get to carry the money.”

Mule Whisperer

Horses by scores and dozens I’ve had between my heels,

And driven hitched to implements dragged or rolled

on wheels.

Horses I’ve worked aplenty, but I’ve never handled a mule;

For they’re obstinate and intractable and don’t play by

the rules.

Hybrids take special handling according to what I’ve seen—

Oversize lungs, an earsplitting voice, and a vocabulary mean,

Belching clouds of loud profanity that drift in a toxic mist;

Words that don’t belong in any mouth a mother’s kissed.

Like [EXPLETIVE], [DELETED], [CENSORED], and [BLEEP],

Calling mules [ASTERISKS], dumb as [CROSSED OUT] sheep;

[DELETED] and [BLEEP] and dirty [OBSCENITY] [CUT],

Threaten them with [STRIKE THROUGH]; no ifs, ands, or buts.

Muleskinners don’t apologize for their filthy, nasty words—

Claim that what they’re saying ain’t the worst a mule

has heard

And burning their big [BLEEPING] ears to gain the

upper hand

Is the only kind of language them [EXPLETIVE]

mules understand.

Square Peg

She saddled up when C.J. passed

And seldom after knew any other seat;

Ramrodded the men, bossed the cows,

Took over that ranch slick and neat.

Learned to sit a saddle smooth and easy,

Like a spot on a paint horse’s back;

To ride all day, scrape a hip hole at night,

And eat from an old greasy sack.

Had a natural eye for horseflesh;

Found cow sense, somewhere, to spare.

Savvied herding and cutting and roping,

Cowboyed more than her share.

Tightened up fences around the place,

Kept thick carpets covering the ground,

Drifting the herd always toward better grass,

Watching the calves pile on pounds.

Started flooding meadows in springtime

To mow them down come late July,

Feeding fat herds there all winter long

from haystacks tight and high.

Old C.J.’s ranch was a flower, it seems,

That blossomed only after he died;

The place became such a showpiece

His dry bones likely swelled with pride.

So folks were surprised when she sold out

To take a place in the town one day.

“Running a ranch just isn’t my pattern.

I’m cut out to keep house, and crochet.”

A rocking chair on a cool screen porch

Was all she rode evermore,

Trading the monotonous creak of leather

For the squeak of a board in the floor.

Spring Works Sonnet

Scrub oak tangles on the slopes; only

spots and specks of sunshine sneak in

where the calf lies silent and lonely.

Breaking branches become a buckskin

horse with limb-fending cowboy aboard.

Whistles and shouts, instinct and insecurity

bring the calf to its feet, drive it toward

the branding fire, burning hair and blistery

hide. Bawling calves mother up, sucking

away the taste of smoke. Sated, they drift

from dusty chaos with the drive, bucking

and running upslope to oak leaves that sift

golden shadows from low sun at end of day

as the dun horse carries the cowboy away.

TWO

Arena Dirt

What Goes Cowboy Up…

“Cowboy up,” says Marlowe,

“Don’t give this horse an inch.

He’ll swap ends and then suck back,”

he advises as he hooks my cinch.

“Cowboy up,” says Shadow

as he pulls my latigo.

“Kick the hair off this old bronc

and you can win the go.”

“Cowboy up,” says Blizzard,

“You can ride Brownie to the bank

—if you can ride him at all,” he grins

as he waits to yank the flank.

“Cowboy up,” I tell myself

as I nod for Buster Brown.

He launches me in three and it’s

cowboy up—and then it’s cowboy down.

The Colorful Pageantry Of Rodeo

Soaring, diving wind-blown kites.

A dance of color under arena lights

On kaleidoscopic summer nights.

Red and blue and purple and green—

The prettiest flying colors you’ve seen.

Color blends, mixes and clashes.

Glowing orange like fire flashes.

Greens appear in smears and splashes.

Blue and purple, red and gold—

Colors fly by in flashes bold.

Flying divots of dirty dun mud.

Reds in all the hues of blood.

Streams of blue in roiling flood.

Green and blue and gold and white—

Brilliant colors, all in flight.

The sparkle of shiny chrome-plated steel

As conchos and snaps and buckles reel;

A silver spur on a boot’s high heel.

Blue and purple; green and red—

Colors fly with wings widespread.

Cream-colored Guatemalan straw.

Whitened knuckles on a grasping claw.

The syrup-brown trail of dislodged chaw.

Spreading, swelling black and blue—

As colors smashed and crashed and flew.

The brilliant hues of a cowboy show?

The colorful pageantry of rodeo?

The answer, unfortunately, is no.

I bucked off bad, I’m sad to announce—

And it’s only me as I roll and bounce.

Rodeo Coming!

The semi’s stacks growl

as it slows to turn up the street.

Here they come, one says,

launching a stampede of feet

in scuffed up, worn out boots.

Hands hold down hats too big

as they shove and stumble

on the run to the arena. The rig

sits as if waiting, ticking and

tocking like a clock winding

down as they hit the fence at

speed, scrambling, climbing,

until elbows latch onto the

top rail and toes catch wire.

Breathless, wide-eyed, they

watch darkness climb higher

as the end gate rises, step

by squeaky step. Here they

come, he says again, as a

seventeen-hand barefoot bay

one-hops down the ramp.

Head high, nostrils wide

he snorts, once, twice, in

their direction. I could ride

that one, one boy bets.

Could not. Could too.

Could not. Well, maybe not—

but I could out-ride you.

Before the Dance

Spurred heel on the barre, nose to knee, they stretch and

flex and extend,

muscle and tendon and joints warm up as they twist and

turn and bend,

they reach and point an arabesque, strike attitude with

bended knee:

the performers prepare out of sight, where audience

does not see.

They spin around in a pirouette, feet fly in a fouetté

they leap and rise and float and glide in entrechat and jeté,

all to prepare for the main event, the partnering up,

the pas de deux.

Their partners, in the meantime, mill aimlessly

behind the chutes—

unconcerned, uncaring, these confederates

who are not allies

twitch their tails and wiggle their hides to ward off

pesky flies.

Lending a Hand a Hand

“I can do it,” she says,

And it’s sure enough true.

I’m just glad she doesn’t add

The “better than you.”

She can load and unload

Her horse and her tack

And handle that trailer

Driving forward or back.

She tosses around baled hay

And big sacks of grain,

Hauls buckets of water

Without stress or strain.

I just want to help, but

She don’t need me for much—

To her, I’m as useless

As a foam-rubber crutch.

It’s a sad state of affairs

For an old bronc rider like me

’Cause I’m sweet on this

Young barrel racer, you see,

And it’s hard to make points

Or win her affection

When my every foray

Is met with rejection.

But what shatters my ego,

What hurts even more,

Is that compared to her

I’m a gunsel for sure;

Forget my regalia

And my bow-legged strut—

When it comes to cowboying,

That girl kicks my butt.

Barrel Roll

Two rights and a left

Or two lefts and a right,

You run 14 seconds

Then trailer all night.

A flying lead change.

Claw out of the turn.

Gather your legs and

Fly home on the burn

Breaking the beam as

You cross the mark.

The arena’s glare

Fades into the dark

And it’s down the road

To the next cloverleaf.

The runway is long.

The flight is brief.

Crowd Pleaser

Being a cowboy hero has

Always been one of my plans—

To perform in the rodeo arena

For thousands of cheering fans.

But choosing an event isn’t easy—

Each one is fraught with perils.

But my dream came true, and now I drive

The truck that picks up the barrels.

Second Opinion

He was hung up and drug all around in the dirt

Stomped kicked and trampled and otherwise hurt.

He was knocked on the head and all in a daze,

So they called in the meat wagon and hauled him away.

The doc at the hospital gave him one glance

And said “Cut off those boots and that shirt and those pants.

We’d best get to work and get this guy mended,

If we don’t there’s a chance that his life will be ended!”

So they started in snipping and cutting away clothes

When the cowboy rose up and said Get rid of those

Scissors! Hold on just a minute! You leave my duds alone!

Hold your horses! he hollered, and Wait! Hold the phone!

“But mister, you don’t understand,” said the nurse,

“You may lose your clothes but the alternative’s worse.”

Well, to YOU, he said, it may be just torn cloth and leather;

But just now it’s the only thing holding ME together.

For Love

You know going in you’re

getting in line for some pain.

You’ve been hurt before.

Still, hopeful, you try again.

What is it they always say—

It’ll get better with time?

Maybe. But that, too,

could be part of the lying.

There are even those who say

it won’t hurt you to suffer.

Makes you stronger. Getting

over it makes you tougher.

Never mind. This time, you

know, won’t be the same.

Sweat breaks. Eyes lock.

Hearts take aim.

You’ll try again because it’s

the only time you feel alive—

this eight-second affair

You know you’ll survive,

but may lose. Because you know,

at this game, only one can win.

Still, pairing up with a bronc,

at least you know going in.

On the Road

Magpie on hot black asphalt

Pecking at a grease spot

That was once a rabbit.

Car roars down desert highway—

172 miles from a rodeo

2 hours away.

In the nick of time

Flies low lazy loop.

Lands

On the road again.

Acquired Taste

No matter where roping calves go

They never wipe their feet.

They don’t care at all about grooming

Or being tidy and neat.

They stand in trailers full of manure

Souped up by barrels of pee

And mill around in mucky pens

In filth that’s ankle deep,

Trot through alleys in more of the same

Then line up in a squalid chute

Stepping in the nasty leavings

Of predecessors who pollute.

Then they do their job in the arena—

Stick three feet up in the air

To be wound up with a piggin’ string

That wraps around all that’s there.

It stands to reason that piggin' string

Will pick up some residue,

And get coated with slime and corruption

From that dung and urine brew.

So it’s absolutely disgusting

And it really grosses me out,

When next time that roper rides in the box

With that piggin’ string in his mouth.

Tied for the Average

Y ou’re roping ten head, you’ve got nine on the ground;

The average is calling and you’re liking the sound.

Y ou’re taking no chances so you load up with ropes

Thinking a second loop will secure all your  hopes;

There’s a spare pigging string in your belt, just in case,

And a jerk line to put your horse in his place.

Y ou back into the box and nod for your draw,

Play it safe at the barrier to avoid any flaw.

Y ou chase down the calf, which runs straight and true,

And your loop, it has eyes—it knows just what to do.

Y ou reel in the slack and swing out of the saddle

But then trouble arrives—your ropes declare battle.

That second loop, somehow, comes off when you do;

The jerk line gets tangled and unreels all askew.

As you turn and you twist trying to get them undone,

The calf that you caught wants in on the fun.

It circles around you—a lap, maybe two—

Then ducks ’tween your legs and runs right on through.

Y ou’re tripped up, tangled up, and flat on your back

Wondering how in the world you got so far off track.

The tie is a legal one—two wraps and a hooey—

Though it’s never been done in a way quite this screwy;

But the field judge says—and drops the flag with a laugh—

That the run is a good one and the winner’s the calf.

Horses of a Different Color

Among cowboys with

Equine opinions to spare,

You’ll often find arguments

About the hair horses wear;

It’s one of those topics

That’s rife with discord,

Like whether the best

Pickup’s a Dodge or a Ford.

They discuss duns and

buckskins, pintos and paints,

Sorrels and chestnuts—

What is, and what ain’t.

Some contend white horses

Are really light gray.

And are roans blue and red,

Or can they be bay?

They’ll even dispute

When brown turns to black;

And when talk turns to appaloosas,

Well, it never turns back.

They squabble and bicker,

Wrangle and debate,

Histrionically quibble,

Argue and expostulate.

But my opinion’s so limited

I don’t bother with the brawl;

Name any color you want—

I think I’ve bucked off ’em all.

So any tone you use or tint you pick

To define a rodeo horse’s hue,

There’s no arguin’ ’bout the rider—

I am, most often, black and blue.

Gear Bag

Contents of gear bag

Idle some 38 years:

1 pretty gold string

with one remaining tassel, tied to handle.

(from whiskey bottle)

1 “Enjoy RODEO The All-American Sport”

badge, pinned to handle.

(from Justin, since 1879)

2 baggage tags, tattered beyond recognition,

attached to handle with elastic strings.

(destination unknown)

1 bareback rigging, with latigos and cinch.

(Jim Houston body,

custom rawhide handhold)

1 leather-covered pad.

(to protect horse’s back

and cowboy’s backside)

1 ore sample sack from hard-rock mine, containing:

1 size 8-1/2 leather glove with leather tie strap.

(stiffened with benzoin

and coated with rosin)

1 plastic bottle, Rosin, N. F. Lump, 1 pound.

(Price tag: $2.76,
approximately 1/3 full)

1 old plastic rosin bottle, containing:

3 partial rolls of wide adhesive tape;

1 rust-colored sock, knotted, rosin inside.

1 ragged plastic bag

“Complimentary For Your Use”

from Stardust, Las Vegas, containing:

1 pair of worn, torn, stitched, riveted, and repaired chaps.

(white, blue fringe and trim, red stars and belt)

1 pair of boots with split tops and ankle straps.

(one with tape wrapped around instep,
unfamiliar wool socks stuffed inside)

1 pair of custom-made spurs,

2-1/4 inch offset shanks and flat 5-point star rowels.

1 lifetime’s worth of lies and reride stories.

(partly used)

THREE

Ruminations

Haiku for a Cowboy’s Education

I might have been born

naked, but I have since learned

to cover my hide.

Long Time Ago

Tobacco smoke clouded up under his hat brim

as it drifted slowly from his nose.

He never waved it away, just let it drift and hover,

crinkling his eye corners closed.

Time was, he said, saddle horses was rank.

Ever’ mornin’ they’d rattle

a man from his topknot to his bootheels. But by

damn, they could work cattle.

In the olden days, he told me, sucking smoke

from the smoldering butt,

a cowboy had to earn his way to the name.

Nowadays, any bow-legged strut

With a store-bought shiny buckle holdin’ up

a pair of pants gets called

a cowboy. Hell, kid, the way things is a-goin’

makes a real hand wanna bawl.

Just before the roll-your-own blistered

calloused thumb and fingertip

he opened a cut-down Prince Albert can and

pinched the shreds into the lip.

Damn pen-raised cattle is so soft they

might as well be pets.

You didn’t feed ’em, they’d starve, he said,

rolling another cigarette.

An orange horn of thumbnail scratched

flame onto a wood match.

Lungs gasped and wheezed as he sucked heat

through tobacco thatch.

By damn, we was cowboys, back then,

me and m’ pards, he said.

Ain’t no cowboys nowadays, you ask me.

They’re all gone. All dead,

’cept me. Back then…. Aw, what the hell.

Them days is gone, you know.

Long time ago. Hell, kid, you get to be my age,

everything’s a long time ago.

The Travail, Which God Hath Given

Under the saddle you work,

Dependable and true.

Y our purpose reduced to “useful.”

Y ou don’t feel the jerk

Of the wrangler’s loop

Like you did when spirited and youthful—

For you’re no hand’s pick

As a morning mount

When they’re looking to warm their blood

And the work goes quick

And it’s speed that counts,

So they call for horses still in the bud.

Oh, there are miles in you yet

And you’re nowhere near done;

Still known for being honest and steady;

But you just can’t forget

How life once was fun

And for work you were eager and ready.

It was all cut and run

And go fast for that cow

Hell for leather, all out, pushing hard

Till the set of the sun.

But it’s brains you use now—

Brawn and muscle replaced with smart.

Faithful through and through,

Y ou do what’s expected

For this age is but part of life’s plan.

It’s what good horses do:

Biding time till rejected

To finish up in a dog food can.

The Second Book of Job

Instead of working horseback and following the cow

I could be afoot behind a horse and following the plow.

Sleeping soft in a cabin, cuddling a baby, loving a wife,

Clear water, and home cooking, a settled kind of life

That’s far away, far, far away from the fix I’m in here now.

Here, my belly is my blanket and my back my only bed,

Stone the only pillow on which to lay my bloody head;

Can’t even wallow a hip hole where I lie on solid rock.

No one to sing a sad song, no prayers, no soothing talk.

I’m so alone, so all alone, it will be a comfort to be dead.

A stumble on the rimrock; horse and me both took a spill.

He’s down, bad hurt and thrashing, beyond my reach to kill

To relieve his pain and misery, so I guess we share our fate

In this lonely place so far away where help will come too late.

And the relief that is my rifle is gone, long gone, downhill.

Death won’t be long in coming and I hope I face it brave;

That the pain will treat me gentle so I’ll not rant and rave,

Curse the God who made me, or blame Him for this fix.

Let my mind stay clear instead, and resist those devil tricks

And to the end, the very end, thank God for the life He gave.

As clear and as compelling as the clang of a dinner bell

Is the horse’s futile scratching at the ground on which he fell,

So the buzzards glide and slide down a drain of azure sky

Studying the menu; watching, waiting, for supper to die.

And only bones, lonely bones, will be left, the story to tell.

Soon my Maker will be asking me if I lived the golden rule

And wonder about my learning in His earthly mortal school.

I’ll answer for every wicked thought that ever filled my mind

While hoping they’ll be balanced by the times I acted kind

So the tally shows not evil, rather, fool; mere human fool.

Manifest Destiny

Skeletons, like trusses, rafters, beams,

prop up this trail of ruined dreams

as parades of hopeful pilgrims tread

a road buttressed by bones of the dead.

Upon Stony Places

Like blood spatter

white stones

cover the field

where babies cried

and buffalo stampeded

and drunkards reeled.

Here, Butler. Bailey,

there. O’Brian,

O’Hara, Horn, Dye.

Jettisoned along Calhoun

Hill, on Battle Ridge, in

Deep Ravine, they lie;

dropped by Runs

The Enemy and Lame

White Man and Rain

In The Face and a

thousand more on

the Greasy Grass. Slain

in a battle fought yet,

bones picked over still,

these honored dead

lie unforgotten

yet unremembered:

Names on stones, unread.

Haiku for Autumn

Frosted barbwire shines

in celestial light, but

the Lord giveth and...

Maple leaves flame out

in cold sun; drift down, down, down

in despair and death.

Blood drips below bowed

branch, antlers scratch epitaph

into deer camp duff.

Fat calves bawl, milk gone

in dustcloud of cows shipped to

where memory dies.

Sleek hides turn shaggy,

worn shoes clank onto rust pile.

Tails hoard cockleburs.

Keeping the Books

It’s easier to line out a herd of cattle

Than sort figures into columns and rows,

But it’s not the long hours in the saddle

That determine if a ranch goes.

It’s the nights when you ought to be sleeping,

Resting up for those cowboying days,

When you ride guard over the bookkeeping

That determine if a ranch pays.

It’s the creak of the leather you live for,

The pleasure that working horseback gives.

But it’s the bills and receipts o’er which you pore

That determine if a ranch lives.

It’s dragging calves to the branding fire,

It’s the roundups you love, and the drives.

But it’s the amount on the check from the buyer

That determines if a ranch survives.

But in the end, when God says it’s time to go

And you finally hang up your tack,

It’s all those things that the ledgers don’t show

That tally up to a life in the black.

Semi-Retired

The bail ticks the top wire

and hefted bucket hangs on post.

Hungry horse heads me aside

and noses down into the oats.

My age more than twice over.

He ought to be taking his ease

in the meadow munching clover.

But a kid horse is what he is.

Three times I heave the saddle

before hanging it on his back;

fenders and cinches spraddled

in a hopeless tangle of tack.

Askew blankets, leather awry,

snugged down with a latigo pulled

over crouched shoulder, lifted high

to top out on scuffed-up toes.

Hand over hand up tie strings

boot groping for stirrup hole,

kneeing flank with patched jeans,

snagging horn with an elbow.

He carries me where I want to go

but refuses where danger lurks.

Spent, he turns and trudges home

ignoring rein and quirt.

Calf roping. Western pleasure.

Queen contests. Once won them all.

Silver buckle, trophy spurs,

silk ribbons; faded on tackroom wall.

Hair-side-up blankets cover

saddle tipped on pine pole rail,

steam wisping into autumn air

like the swish of a tired tail.

Bowed neck looped by skinny arm,

headstall pulled over poll and ears;

bit spit from teeth smooth and long.

A kid horse, ending his years.

Haiku for a Horseback Morning

Fetlocks sponge up dew,

waking trail through silver’d green

until the sun climbs.

Gone

With every footfall of the horse, whiskey

sloshes in the bottle in the saddlebag.

The sound of it soothes him. He mops

his face with the bib of his wildrag

and wishes for wind. Biscuit crumbles

in his mouth and he thinks again

of the bottle but instead uncorks the

canteen and splashes the taste of tin

into his mouth and down his throat

and off his chin. On a morning now past

the biscuits had been fresh and water

cool on a tongue flavored with last

night’s featherbed ardor. Tonight, he

will wallow a hip hole in the dirt

and tangle with a thin blanket, every

hooch-filled heartbeat diluting the hurt.

Haiku for Hunger

Tomorrow lies in

the curve of a woman’s breast

in moonshadow glow.

Packsaddle

For Mother, on her 80th Birthday

No cinches, latigos, or breeching.

No sawbuck tree. No pannier or kyack.

No diamond hitch in a lash rope.

No load stacked or packed on her back.

But when she’d sit, if she’d sit,

between this chore, this job or that,

the bend in the middle made

a lap where, always, something sat:

a bag of groceries back from town,

a book to read, an afghan to crochet,

dresses to hem, shirts to mend,

potatoes to peel, homework to okay.

And babies, owned or borrowed.

Her children, then children grand and great;

family, friends, neighbors, strangers

snuggle up soft and safe and warm and wait

while the packsaddle lap rides them

gently, rocks them easily, down the trail

to dreamland. But no nap for the lap;

it moves on, like a mochila packing the mail.

The Beauty of Mountains

Out there, a man’s mile-long morning

shadow runs from the sunrise, rolling over

crease and crest and coulee, elongating

a semblance of the horseback drover

erect atop the prairie. Even at noonday,

when he couldn’t shade a single blade

of bluestem, the shadow rider blazons his way—

the only vertical entity round about to invade

the plain. Nothing, nothing else within eyeshot

to distract from, to detract from, to interfere with

the high pride of a mounted man on the long trot,

realizing his own reality of the cowboy myth.

But out here, canyons, cliffs, pinnacles, peaks

swallow man and mount whole. Out here, the sun-

rise is high up the sky so his shy shadow sneaks

out, slinks back, on a rough and rugged run

over slow terrain, never falling far from its source.

Landscape overshadows; reminds a rider of his place.

Out here, mountains render horseman and horse

an insignificant presence; accepted, solely, by grace.

For DW Groethe

Acknowledgements

Many, many folks have inspired, informed, instructed, enabled, and encouraged me in my attempts at poesy. They know who they are and I hope they know how much I value them. On a larger scale, there are organizations (and the people associated with them) who have been instrumental: CowboyPoetry.com and The Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, Western Writers of America, Cowboy Poets of Utah, the League of Utah Writers, and Idaho Writers League.

Appreciation, as well, to the publishers and editors who have inked up my poems, particularly those in this volume that previously appeared in these periodicals: Western Horseman (“Heads or Tails,” “Not Counting Saddlebags,” “Mule Whisperer,” “Barrel Roll,” “Semi-Retired”), American Cowboy (“Second Opinion,” “Tied for the Average,” “The Second Book of Job”), Range Magazine (“Long Time Ago”), Roundup (“Upon Stony Places), Rope Burns (“Preliminary Aftermath”), and Elko Daily Free Press (“Riding Old Red”); and the anthology Brushstrokes & Balladeers (“Migrations,” “Spring Works Sonnet”).

Finally, many thanks to Duke and Kimberly Pennell and all the other people at Pen-L Publishing who brought this book to life.

About the Author

Rod Miller is two-time winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award—for poetry and short fiction—winner of the Westerners International Poetry Award, Academy of Western Artists Award for Best Poetry Book, and the 2012 Writer of the Year award from the League of Utah Writers. His poetry has appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, as well as in his collection, Things a Cowboy Sees and Other Poems, and a chapbook, Newe Dreams. Also to Rod’s credit are several essays on the art and craft of poetry, written for CowboyPoetry.com, and he is a frequent presenter at writers’ conferences, workshops, and other events.

In addition to poetry, Rod is author of many magazine articles, three nonfiction books, and four novels, most recently Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range–True Adventures of Bravery and Daring in the Wild West, every word of which, of course, is true.

Visit online at www.writerRodMiller.com

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