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There have been pictures in the newspapers, but I havent seen one cowboy. Oh, I saw a couple at the casinos, but everyone knows those are urban western dressers. A real cowboy, if they existed is bowlegged. Real cowboys dont drive jeeps, those are Marines or llookkallikkee ones, thats the bumpy road. I'm trying to safeguard the idea of poetry, not that stuff you write(if you existed). If I went to hear your stuff, I'd have to stifle the yawns. I cant even imagine it in print. Corny. Rhyming. Yeech. Lets see as I drink this beer if I can instruct you. You have to think in the eye of a painter with the accuracy of a photographer. You have to taste the bisquits, as they're baking, or just on the table under that little cloth. You have to write as if you were a cockroach, sittin somewheres, willing to have them cold, and crumbs at that. But all you have is tv dinners, belching out rhymes no decent poet would want to skin his knees for. Its not that you dont have anything to write about, surrounded by nature and all that, its just that you're ignorant by design, if of course you existed. I bet you go to those poetry festivals and polish your boots. No scuffs for you, no horsestuff on the heels, nope, no worn wood in the bunkhouses, no smell of cedar, hope chest or incense, nope, all you got is double nothing, your poetry and you not existing. A hay truck passed through town, but those were farmers, I know they exist, I saw them. Not only am I dealing with something that dont exist, but facsimiles as well. The only cowboys are South of the Border, they know what leather tastes like, not chewing on some plastic cord, walking the dog. I guess the truths out, all those westerns. All those lies. And no doubt, you'll be back, next year, at the rodeo, fooling them all over again. Except me. NOW I KNOW they have horsemen in England, I read National Geographic. What I dont know if they have horses. You have horses, but the horses dont have you, because you dont exist. Must be lonely, being a horse for you.
There has been rumour,
that in Calgary, Canada,
Cowboys exist.
Actually, there might be,
if they ever figure out
how to mount the horse.
If in fact, they can
determine horse
from sheep.
And once up there,
their boots kicking
and their facing
the ground,
surely, they'll determine
which is which
(THE CALGARYIANS
HAVE MADE A LIST,
GAINED FROM MYTH
ABOUT THEIR FUTURE
ASSIMILATION
INTO COWBOYDOM,
SO SHOULD YOU PASS
THROUGH THEIR COUNTY
YOU WILL NOTE
THE BASIC UNIFORM
THOUGH BASIC STEED
STILL MUCH UP IN THE AIR.
THEREFORE, I SUGGEST DIRGIBLES
(SINCE AT RODEOS,
OURS REALLY RIDE
BIG FLUFFY PILLOWS
THATS NO BULL.)
WITH THOSE HOT
AIRED CALGARYIANS
I QUITE ASSURE YOU
PEGASUS
WILL BE SAFE
THOUGH SHEEP
JUMPING FENCES
MAY NOT BE.
Today, At the Vista,
California Transit station
I met a Mexican cowboy
no bigger than a short fuse.
He wore a bright red scene of Mexican cowboys falling
off of their horses,
surely that was what I saw
and not imagined.
He wore an alligator belt and buckle, that roared
like a couger,
along with lizard skin boots.
I am sure the closest
he has been to a horse
is sitting on a footstool,
next to his grandfathers knees.
I didnt learn his name,
nor mine, Apollo,
brujo of the nine muses.
Lucky fellow.
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