When your ride’n drag through the swelterin’ heat
and you’ve bout had all the dust one-man can eat
When the sweat’s running down from collar to boot
just forty miles gone on a hundred-mile route

The ass ends of cattle is all you can see
and the smell is so strong it makes your nose bleed
When the flies are biting deep into your skin
well now that’s when the doubtin’ really begins

You start to look back o’er the passing of years
remembering the good times, laughter and tears
You think about old friends, love, death and sorrow
glory of the past and unknown tomorrows

Oh, there’ve been choices I wish I’d never made
some bar room fights where I should’ve walked away
Times when I have left though I knew I should stay
too busy drinking when I needed to pray

It’s been mostly all work and not much playing
a whole lot of leaving and not much staying
But if I had it to do over again
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t change a damn thing

Prairie Time – a collection of poems and prose from a wannabee cowboy

Jerry Brotherton

copyright 2020

Poetry should be easy to read
you don’t have to make it all frilly
No need to be filled with fancy words
whether you’re serious or silly

You can talk about a snowy day
the hard pouring rain or bright sunshine
Just put your feelings down on paper
hell, it doesn’t even have to rhyme

You can talk about your dog or wife
perhaps your cat or even your horse
Talk about your neighbor (maybe not)
the football field or the new golf course

Don’t be afraid to let people read
though there’s some folks that might laugh at it
But hey, at least you wrote a poem
while most of them guys didn’t do shit

So get out a pen and some paper
or typewriter if that’s what you got
Cause the key to doing something right
is to practice…and practice a lot

Jerry Brotherton

copyright 2020

We’ve all got a hundred poems or stories that we’ve started and for some reason they just fell by the wayside. I thought I’d give them one chance to see the light of day before they were shoved back in to the reject pile. Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you my series of – Poems that did not make the cut.

The Other Side of the Story
The end of hickory dickory you don’t know
is when back up the side of the clock the mouse goes
The little shit chewed right through the wire
and that started a big ass house fire
To fix that damage, I had to pay through the nose

Get Out of the Way
All that grease in the sausage I ate
has my breakfast gurgling right on through
my stomach is not feeling so great
Man I really do have to go poo

Farmer and a Cowboy
To most city slickers I suppose
it’s a little hard for them to tell
the difference between a cowboy
and just a plain farmer. in the dell
Well one uses a horse and a rope
the other drives a tractor and plow
One smells like a fancy pickup truck
The other like the ass of a cow

Peaceful Nights
Sitting outside the firelight
I share this valley with the moon
The stars twinkle overhead
and the bullfrogs begin to croon
My fire sparks its own starlight
drifting up into the night sky
To God I give a prayer
as a wolf starts a lonely cry

I know that all good things must meet their fate
but to die alone would bring such sorrows
None there to reminisce about the past
or to ponder upon the tomorrows

No one there to hold tightly my frail hand
or to gently caress my leathered cheek
With no last kiss to soothe my furrowed brow
no loving words given for memories keep

No one to whisper a final goodbye
or to pray for just a little more time
No one there to dry the tears from my face
as I succumb to the clocks closing chime

To pass unnoticed across the grey veil
with unfettered tears and shuddering breath
No one there to hear my last crying sigh
as my eyes darken with shadows of death

Jerry Brotherton
Copyright 2021

Though no one cares bout what I say

I’ll just go ahead and say it anyway

long as it’s the words that I embrace

Cause with or without my song

this old world will still move right along

that’s the nature of the human race

So I have to say that I don’t care

even if the election was unfair

that’s still no reason to act with such distaste

To have such loathing for your fellow man

is so hard for me to understand

how any one could lack all dignity and grace

I do agree there was a time

when I let my feelings overtake my rhymes

and now I regret some words written in haste

To atone for my past sins

I’ll try not to let hatred win

the next time evil and I come face to face

Cause there is only one way that I see

to create a better place for you and me

that’s to take hatred out and put love in its place