~ A Rancher’s Wife…

She’s up in the morning
two hours before dawn
has done most of her chores
before the lights come on

Already milked the cows
and gathered up the eggs
even put liniment
on the horse’s sore legs

Bacon and eggs are cooked
the biscuits are baked brown
the gravy has been stirred
and the plates laid down

Once the pans are empty
the last bread’s been buttered
the men tack their horses
while she clears the clutter

Now a fifty mile drive
just to get to the store
to pick up the supplies
they have been waiting for

Time to fry the chicken
and put beef in the beans
cause stomachs on the ranch
are never full it seems

After serving the meal
and cleaning up the mess
she’ll ride out to the range
and work beside the rest

She has to be able
to ride fence, rope and brand
just as good as any
of those other hired hands

When the day is over
tired and hungry as hell
the men wash up and get
set for the supper bell

She’ll be in the kitchen
cooking vittles again
Cause work for a ranch wife
never comes to an end

Still in the Army

Dressed in denim jackets and bell bottom jeans with colorful patches sewn over holes that never existed, we tried to be normal 1970’s youth. We listened to Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Eagles, America and Pink Floyd. Our attempt to be non-conformists only managed to create more conformity. And short military haircuts can’t be disguised in a world where the length of your hair is a status symbol. No matter how hard we pretended to be friends, it was still just a stranger that passed the hash pipe back across the table. We’d take a hit and dream we were home.

He Wasn’t a Superman…

My friend would sit quietly in the corner and talk to himself when he only drank beer; nicest guy you ever met. A bottle of wine would have him shouting obscenities at passersby for reasons unknown. He might walk naked into the police station after a night of tequila. Once, Jim Beam sent him staggering down Highway 24 to do hand to hand combat with a moving semi-truck. Later he walked away from the altercation on two broken legs, a broken arm and 3 broken ribs. My friend died alone in his apartment last night after 60 days of detox.

On The Train…

written while stationed in Germany – 1976


We ride the train at night. Store front signs flash neon onto our faces through the window. Red, green, blue in words we don’t know. Just four foreigners crowded in with a hundred faces. They speak in a language we can only catch a few pieces of. We get stern looks from disgusted fellow travelers each time we speak. So we travel in silence. But I know what they are thinking. They don’t need to say it. I can see it in their anger. “You’d think if they are going to be stationed here, they’d learn to speak our language.”

Trust…

She led the way up the path. I couldn’t keep from staring at her, thinking about all the things I had discovered…the things that no other person has ever known. She had chosen me to share her soul. In my hands she had placed all her trust and innocents and when you go that far, it forms a connection that can never be destroyed. Purely from the virtue of knowing how your life will never again be the same. She turned to me, smiled and dove off the cliff into the water below. I vowed I would always follow her